


Timing Is Everything

by blythechild



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Romantic Friendship, Sexual Content, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-05
Updated: 2012-06-05
Packaged: 2017-11-06 23:21:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 29,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/424356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blythechild/pseuds/blythechild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emily Prentiss returns after the Doyle case and tries to slip back into old habits. Everyone acts as if she's fine, but Reid can see the cracks beginning to form in her. He steps forward to help a friend in need unaware that it will fundamentally alter the relationship and perhaps change the make-up of the BAU forever. This fic takes place over the course of the entire seventh season and has specific spoilers for the season finale.</p><p>This is a work of fanfiction and as such I do not claim ownership over the characters herein. It was created as a personal entertainment. It contains violent situations, mature themes, and sexual content - it should not be read by those under the age of 18.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Observation

Observation can alter the reality of a thing. Just as Schrödinger’s theoretical cat had been both alive and dead until observation solidified its state of being into reality, Reid felt as if something similar was happening as he observed Emily Prentiss. She was not as she was before. How could she be? Yet she went to great pains in her first few months back in the Unit to assure everyone that she was the same agent, the same friend that she had been before she ‘died’. He gave her the benefit of the doubt. He had accepted her apology and was slowly thawing the ice in which he had sealed their friendship. He’d even taken out his justifiable anger towards her on J.J. instead, which he simultaneously viewed as a kindness to Prentiss and a slightly unfair jab at J.J. 

But Prentiss wasn’t fooling him - not really. She was trying too hard to be herself. She slipped right back into her established routines and interactions as if Ian Doyle had never existed. Maybe the others bought it but he didn’t. And here is where the question lay: was she really changed, or was his focused observation of her creating a change in his perception of her? Most days he was too swamped with case files and consulting requests to give it much thought. But every once and a while a quiet moment snuck up on him and he obsessed over the problem.

At one of Rossi’s now-regular team dinners, Prentiss caught him staring as they stood around the kitchen while Dave attempted to teach Morgan how to make homemade pasta. She strolled over to him, a glass of wine cradled between her fingers, and leaned against the wall next to him.

“You’re quiet tonight. Everything okay?”

“Sure. How are you doing?”

He stared at her as she fixed the expected smile to her face and told him that she was great. He didn’t say anything back - anything less than calling her out on her deception would have been disingenuous. He watched as the smile faded from her face and imagined that his disbelief was becoming as obvious to her as her lies were to him. It was hard not to feel a surge of satisfaction at this small victory. She was his friend and he wanted to believe that they would remain so, but his definition of the term held no room for lies. 

“Any time you feel like telling me about it, I’ll be around.” He said and then drifted off into the group that surrounded Rossi’s pasta maker. She didn’t talk to him again that evening.

…

They were on a case in Detroit. Most of the team was in the field chasing down leads or reviewing the various crime scenes. Reid remained in the police squad room to review handwritten notes left by the killer and to begin a geographic profile. Prentiss was there as well reviewing witness statements and liaising with the locals; a task that was grating on her with every passing day. She was still recovering from the shot she’d taken in California and might have been spoiling for a fight due to inactivity.

One of Detroit’s finest, a clichéd hard-boiled old timer who favored threatening informants and pounding down doors to psychological triggers and unconscious urges, had been giving them a rough time over the case. Like most LEOs he resented their authority and questioned their methods. He had already taken several disparaging shots at Reid which had made about as much impact as spitballs on a tank, and was currently questioning the wisdom of letting a former suspect go because he did not fit three out of the five main profile markers. With J.J. in the field, Prentiss was left to calm the waters.

“I understand that you may not respect our methods, Detective Linehan, but the results will be the same whether we let Boswell go or not: another killing.”

Reid watched as Prentiss fought to keep her body language open and non-confrontational. But her fingers twitched every time the Detective spoke and she was wearing her most ironic ‘compassion’ expression, which put him on alert for trouble.

“You’re telling me to kick a _viable_ suspect while _also_ saying that another murder is a foregone conclusion? That’s some pretty messed up analysis, sweetie, and considering that you can’t tell me for sure that Boswell didn’t do it, I don’t see why I should listen to anything that comes out of your pretty piehole.”

Prentiss’s hands twitched noticeably at the words “sweetie” and “pretty”. She was normally much more in control over her hostility to garden variety chauvinism. Reid spoke up.

“The killer is on a three day cycle, Detective, and will strike again tonight. We are simply saying that sweating Boswell is a waste of resources as it gets us no closer to the actual UNSUB. If you keep him, you will not prevent another murder. Only working the profile will put us within reach of stopping him, and everyone we have working towards _that_ is what we require. We could really use your help.”

“Whatever, Professor.” Linehan dismissed Reid with his finger. “I’ve got ulcers older than you and they probably have more criminal insight as well.”

“His name is _Doctor_ Reid, Detective.” Prentiss warned.

“Listen, _Ms._ Prentiss, we were on top of this long before you all showed up. So far all you guys have done is take up office space and let ‘A Beautiful Mind’ over there colour in maps. I doubt that you’ve done much real police work so let me break this down for you: you need to get your hands dirty, and that’s what I’m gonna do to Boswell ‘til he tells me the truth.”

“If you just threatened physical harm to a suspect…”

Prentiss’s hand flicked back and up towards her holstered piece. Every fiber of Reid went on alert. _Prentiss, what are you doing?_

“I don’t answer to you. You got a problem, take it up with my lieutenant. Until then, get out of my way, honey.”

Linehan marched towards Prentiss with the intention of bulling his way past her. Prentiss reached for her weapon and was stopped by Reid’s hand on her wrist. He moved his body between her and Linehan, shuffling them aside as the clueless detective left the conference room and headed towards the holding cells.

“What were you going to do, Prentiss?” Reid whispered.

“He…” Her breathing was rapid and she licked her lips before she spoke again. “He was going to make a move.”

“No, he wasn’t. He’s all talk, and you were about to pull your gun on an active police detective in his own precinct. He worked you like some misdemeanor loser and you _let_ him get to you. What is going on?”

“Get your hand off me.”

“Or what? You’ll shoot me too?” He let go of her anyway but invaded her personal space to grab her complete attention. “You’re losing control and it’s just a matter of time before someone else notices. Think about the consequences of continuing on as you have been. You need to stop hiding this.”

“Reid, you’re my friend and I care about you but you don’t know what you’re talking about. Maybe you oughta spend less time inside your own head trying to read things into the people that you’re supposed to trust, and spend more time… I dunno, going out and getting laid or something.”

_That was clumsy. Desperate, even… She’s trying too hard._

He stepped away and then went back to the map that he had been creating. He kept his tone neutral as he felt her eyes boring into the back of his skull.

“I think that I’m getting screwed over plenty right here.”

His marker made squeaking noises as he shaded in a section of the map. He knew that she stood behind him staring for a full minute before she turned and left him alone in the conference room. He sighed and started to form a new strategy as his hand hung in mid-air with the marker poised between his fingers. After several minutes of stillness, he nodded to himself and went back to shading in his map.


	2. The Plan

Two days after the Detroit case ended, Reid came into the office and found a Criterion Collection edition of _Rebecca_ on his desk. He looked around but she wasn’t in sight. He picked up the DVD case and slipped it into his messenger bag with a small smile.

_She’s sorry._

Twenty minutes later she wandered into the bullpen and settled behind her desk with her standard greeting. He kept his head down and pushed through his paperwork. He allowed himself to get lost in his case files for several hours before wondering how to initiate the next phase of his strategy. At lunch, an opportunity miraculously presented itself.

“Hey kid, you up for a little Halo 3 tonight?” Morgan slouched against Reid’s desk.

Reid shook his head and smiled knowingly. “You’re gonna keep going there, aren’t you? Just accept that in spite of your prowess as an FBI agent, you have the video gaming skills of an inebriated sloth and let it go, Morgan.”

Behind the desk partition, Prentiss tried to stifle a guffaw.

“It’s a skill that I can acquire, like any other.” Morgan sniffed. “So, is that a yes or a no for tonight?”

“As much as I would cherish the opportunity to blow you up repeatedly with a plasma grenade, I can’t this evening. It’s movie night and I’m meeting up with some friends. How about Saturday night instead?”

“Saturday? That’s prime time, man. _You_ should be out working your charms on the unsuspecting gentlewomen of the greater D.C. area…”

“You make dating sound so much like hunting for prey, and considering what we both do for a living, that seems more than just a little creepy.” Reid raised his eyebrow. Morgan wasn’t fooling him either; Garcia had him on a short leash. “Your gaming crib sheet can come as well, if you like. Garcia’s the only one who can give me a run for my money anyway.”

“You’re a smug bastard sometimes, Doctor. Okay, yer on - I’m gonna enjoy watching The Pinkness Divine take you apart piece by piece. What about you, Prentiss? You in for this Geek Battle Royale?”

“Nah. I’ve gotta date.”

“Of course you do.” Morgan smiled.

_No, she doesn’t._

“Besides, I’ve seen him clean all of your clocks before. After the fifteenth time it stops being amusing.”

“Ouch, P. And I was gonna treat you to lunch…”

“You still are.” She stood up and grabbed her purse. “I know a few things about gaming too, ya know… I figure that it’ll cost you a pastrami on rye with the works from Sorkin’s Deli.”

“Huh.” Morgan flashed his trademark smile. “Okay. You wanna come along, Reid? Keep her from giving away all of your secrets?”

“No, I’m good. Bring me back a sandwich or something.”

Morgan and Prentiss headed out as Reid turned back to his paperwork with a smile on his face. 

_Phase 1 initiated._

…

Reid’s doorbell rang and he paused the movie as he leapt to answer it. She was pretty late - almost pushing the boundaries of polite leniency. He wondered if she was doing it on purpose to test him.

“I was beginning to think that you weren’t coming. I started without you.”

He took her coat without asking and turned into the apartment. He gestured lazily for her to follow him - it wasn’t like she hadn’t been there dozens of times before. Although this was the first time since she had resurrected herself.

“Well, to be honest… I wasn’t sure that I was coming until about twenty minutes ago.”

_Interesting._

“Maybe my invitation was too subtle.” He dismissed her statement with deliberate obtuseness. “Want a glass of wine? You didn’t drive here, did you?”

There was a noticeable pause as he rattled around in his kitchen. She wasn’t expecting him to be this casual, to ignore the obvious prompt that she lay out before him. He smiled to himself and waited.

“Umm… sure I’d love some wine. I took a cab here.”

He returned from the kitchen with a glass for her and she folded herself into the spot on his couch that she always took. It was habit, he noticed, not a forced behavior. 

“I’ll start it again. I’m only 15 minutes in…”

“No, that’s okay. I always felt that the courtship scenes were two dimensional anyway.”

“Really. What is it you find unrealistic?” He turned to her. “Is it the age difference between Maxim and his second wife? Or is it the class disparity? Maybe the gulf between their intellects?”

“I dunno.” Prentiss shook her head and then paused. “Maybe it’s just that I don’t believe that they could fall in love that quickly. It takes time to know someone…”

“Maybe. But sometimes I think that you just… _know_.”

She was looking at him over the rim of her wineglass with a strangely guarded expression. He noticed her clothes for the first time: comfortable and casual - what you would wear to a friend’s place. But she had re-done her make-up from the office, which he found notable.

“Have you ever just… _known_?” She asked.

“No, not really. But I’m not ruling out the possibility in the future. While it’s statistically improbable, I think that it might be nice to have a thunderbolt experience.”

“A thunderbolt experience?”

“You know, ‘like a bolt from out of the blue’? Believe it or not, studies have been conducted about this phenomenon and while a large percentage of couples cite familiarity through work, hobbies, friends or family groups as linkages that led them to their mates, anecdotal evidence exists for those who develop powerful bonds with complete strangers that last a lifetime.”

“Sounds like a mental disorder to me.”

Reid chuckled. “Many describe love as a mental illness. Rossi in particular…”

“He’s just doing it wrong.”

“With three ex-wives, I think that he’s doing _something_ right, but his follow-through is flawed.”

It was Prentiss’s turn to laugh and she half-choked on her wine in the process.

“Anyway, I think that the speed of attraction in this movie is more an expediency of the scriptwriter than anything else. And Hitchcock uses it to good effect in fostering doubt and tension between the couple throughout the film.” 

“I’ve missed this.” Prentiss said quietly while staring at the frozen image on the TV screen.

Reid stared at her but she kept her eyes straight ahead. She was curled into herself as tightly as she could manage and the position spoke loudly to Reid. He nodded to himself and then reached for the remote to press PLAY.

…

Reid walked Prentiss to the door and helped her into her jacket. It was the sort of thing that he did without thinking but it always caught her off guard. There were certain forms of respect with which women were no longer accustomed, and he thought the world was poorer for it. She thanked him and then stood awkwardly in the hall. It was unusual that _she_ would be the one ill at ease…

“Listen, Reid, about Detroit…”

“I know.” He interrupted. “You’re sorry about what you said - about what you did.”

“I am.”

“Well, I’m not sorry about what _I_ said and did, and you need to understand that. I meant every word. I can see the trouble you’re in…”

“Reid…” She drew out his name in frustration.

He reached for her arm and held it firmly. “Everyone’s learning to trust you again, and you’re trying to make it as easy as possible for us - but at what cost to yourself? Don’t work yourself into another situation that you can’t get out of. I’m telling you as frankly as I can that, if you trust me with this, I’ll do everything I can to help you. But, if you pull a Detroit stunt again, I’ll have no choice but to go to Hotch with it.”

Prentiss’s lips thinned into a determined line and then she closed her eyes and tried to hide the flash of shame that bubbled to the surface. Reid stepped closer.

“You’re hyper vigilant, you’re overcompensating, you’re moody and have a hair trigger…”

“I can’t sleep.” She murmured.

He nodded. “And you must be exhausted what with all of the reading and adjusting that you’re constantly doing in an attempt to pass as normal. How did you get past the re-instatement psych evaluation?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “I’m a profiler, Reid. Just because I’m transparent to _you_ doesn’t mean that everyone can read me.”

“All right.” He rubbed her arm where he had been gripping it and then reached for the door. “Let me think on this.”

“What are you going to do?” She looked scared.

“I’m going to do what I said, Prentiss. I’m going to help you.”

…

The following week as they walked across the tarmac to the BAU jet on their way to Arkansas, Reid caught up to Prentiss and handed her a slip of paper.

“What’s this?”

“A friend from movie night.” He murmured. “She’ll be expecting your call when we get back from this case. Do yourself a favor and decide now to be honest with her from the start.”

He climbed the jetway before her and never mentioned the note again.

_Phase 2 initiated._


	3. Re-evaluation

He watched her closely over the weeks that followed. Some days he despaired that she took his promise seriously. She would arrive and carry on as she had before, her façade only cracking when she caught him staring at her. On those days, she rarely met his eyes. Other days, she looked distracted and brooding. She started to slowly jettison her standard pantsuit uniform for more casual attire. Her usual allure of cool confidence began to flag. Some days she even showed up without wearing her armor of perfect make-up and hair. Something was chipping away at her and she was struggling to emerge. On those days he did what he could to help: a cup of coffee, a magic trick, setting himself up as a straight man for one of her jokes…

Movie night became a regular thing although they never asked anyone else to join them. In fact, when either one of them was asked to join in something that conflicted with it, they actively lied to get out of the conflict _and_ to keep the event between the two of them. Neither of them mentioned this, but it became an unspoken rule.

Week after week, Reid watched Prentiss uncoil herself by inches on his couch. She let her mask slip in his presence, and though he could tell that she still wasn’t sleeping, her distraction was less. He even got her to laugh now and again. One evening after the movie ended, they fell into an easy conversation. It wasn’t the norm for Prentiss anymore and Reid was careful not to break the mood. It was good to talk with her again.

“So, your friend from movie night,” Prentiss began as he leaned forward to refill her wine glass.

“Claire?” He was surprised that she brought the topic up.

“Yeah. She talks about you often and fondly.” Prentiss smiled behind her glass. He saw a glint there that he hadn’t seen in… well, ages. “Are you two an item?”

Reid shook his head a little too aggressively. “No. I mean, we dated a couple of times… but that was a while ago.”

“Those must have been some pretty great dates if you two broke up and you can still call her up and ask for a substantial favor… she told me that she doesn’t have an opening for a new patient until 2014.”

“But she’s seeing you, right?” He was very curious but had forced himself not to ask.

“Yeah. Three times a week for almost three months now. She’s brutal but she’s straightening me out - don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t, I mean, I’m glad that she’s helping. She’s one of the best psychiatrists on the Eastern Seaboard.”

“And I’m sure that she’s the prettiest.”

Reid shrugged and sipped his wine.

“So, what happened there?” Prentiss leaned in conspiratorially. “She’s gorgeous, talented, no doubt she can keep up with you intellectually, and she seems to have a lot of warm feelings for you…”

“She’s a remarkable woman.” Reid stopped and then sighed when he saw that Prentiss expected more. “She’s a psychiatrist, I’m a profiler. There was too much analysis going on and not enough chemistry.”

“No thunderbolt experience.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s a shame.”

Reid murmured noncommittally and they both fell silent for a moment.

“She thinks that there’s something going on between us though.” Prentiss dropped casually.

Reid coughed a little and sat up straighter. “Pardon?”

“Yeah, she’s asked about it more than once.”

“That doesn’t seem… professional.”

“Oh no,” Prentiss made a calming gesture. “I don’t think that she’s gonna go all _Fatal Attraction_ on you… she seems to be curious about our dynamic. Why you were the only one who noticed the PTSD… why you offered to help…”

“That’s what friends do.” Reid huffed. “We’ve been friends for years.”

“That’s what I told her. She said that she’d like to circle back to it at a later date.”

Prentiss seemed unconcerned by this prospect and Reid didn’t know how to take that. Of course he saw her as an attractive woman, but some time long ago he had convinced himself that nothing would ever happen between them. Perhaps it had been professional deference, or perhaps it had been his youth, but he had never re-evaluated the situation. In time their friendship grew and bore complex and tantalizing fruit. Now, whatever he thought of her physically, her mind had the attraction of a Hitchcock blonde for him. But he had always satisfied that attraction through friendship. With that mind in turmoil, it wasn’t so unbelievable that he would move mountains to seek its recovery. Was it? Was this another example of observation altering the reality of a thing?

“You don’t have to discuss your therapy with me.” He said quietly. “That’s not why I recommended Claire to you.”

“I know. But I don’t mind talking about it with you because its… _you_.”

She smiled at him and he nodded in understanding. They fell into silence again as Reid decided that re-evaluation was in order.

…

It was spring and the Unit became predictably busy. While each UNSUB was unique in his or her pathology, it seemed to Reid that many went dormant during the winter. He mused that there was a paper in there somewhere but one that would almost certainly be dismissed by everyone in his profession. It wasn’t always worth the trouble of proving that you were right about something.

Prentiss was having a lot of bad days. After a couple of months of dramatic progress, she appeared to be backsliding. Reid knew from experience that setbacks during recovery happened, and he tried to roll with whatever Prentiss was doing. The others began to notice her abrupt mood changes and her snippy remarks. Hotch even pulled her aside and offered his services as a de facto counselor. But the real explosions always happened away from work. Reid was privately thankful for this - that Prentiss had enough control over herself to decide when and where to melt down - but it was disconcerting that it usually involved him. One night during a viewing of _TRON_ , Reid went on a long verbal non sequiter about the possibility of flying cars, French existentialist comic book art, and how close neuroscientists were to initiating an organic thought process within an artificial intelligence when Prentiss went off on him.

“Not every thought requires expression, Reid!”

She had been quiet all evening and he had noticed a tremor in her left hand that she had been trying to hide from him. Still, he had opted for continuing on as usual in hopes that the familiar would calm her. Now, he saw the white knuckled grip that she had on the couch arm and realized that he had made a mistake.

“Sorry… I’m… sorry.”

“Jesus Christ! I have to listen to you fertilize us with your brilliance all day, and then I have to listen to the victims families wail about their pain… the fucking LEOs bitching about the injustice of us stepping all over their limp dicks!”

She was yelling and she stood as her hands gesticulated wildly. She turned towards him and pointed at him accusingly.

“All we ever do is talk. I can’t STAND IT! The goddamned noise is too much! Everything just gets louder and louder and no one hears me screaming for it to stop!”

“I hear you.” He whispered. “I’m listening to you right now.”

“You just want to control me, to control _this_.” She hissed as she pointed to herself. “You can’t have me! I won’t allow it!”

He rose quickly and tried to keep his voice calm. “Why do you think I want to control you? You came here of your own volition.”

“THEY SENT ME HERE!” She was rocking between her feet and she had rolled her shoulders forward as if preparing to fight him. “They expect things from me… expectations or death… There’s no getting out until the mission is accomplished…”

“No one’s coming for you, Prentiss. It’s just me here… Its just Reid…”

She looked at him suddenly and her eyes narrowed in suspicion as a frighteningly unhinged laugh bubbled up from her. “You’re not Reid.” She sounded absolutely certain.

“Prentiss…” He reached for her arm.

“Don’t fucking _touch_ me!”

Her eyes went wide and from out of nowhere she drew her off duty gun on him. His life contracted to the aperture of the mussel pointed at his chest. He raised his hands slowly in surrender. He wasn’t armed, his service gun and back-up both locked away in his gun safe.

“Emily…”

“Shut UP!” She waved the gun in front of her as her eyes scanned the room for other possible threats. 

She wasn’t with him anymore. She was somewhere alone and terrified, a thousand dark miles from hope or help. He scanned his memory for any helpful information that he had about PTSD-related emotional breaks. Something stuck out and he attempted to swallow his fear.

“Agent Prentiss!” He barked in his best Hotch impression. “Holster your weapon immediately!”

Prentiss looked around and then came back to Reid. Her brow wrinkled in confusion as her brain tried to match up what her instincts were telling her to do. He tried to smile at her - that awkward Reid smile - and some recognition flashed across her. Instead of having a calming effect, it appeared to amp up her confusion. He took a hesitant step towards her, hands still in the air. She focused again and cocked her gun.

Click-click.

His knees went watery and he hoped that he wouldn’t collapse. The movement would almost certainly cause her to shoot him. _Fuck! Think… THINK!_

“Agent Prentiss, that’s a direct order. Do you understand me? Holster. Your. Weapon. NOW.”

“How do you…” She shook her head. “You keep changing…”

“We’ve got your back, Agent. We’re with you. Lower your weapon.”

Prentiss’s confusion continued, but she slowly lowered the gun. Reid closed the distance between them and pried the gun from her hands. Physical contact snapped her back to reality and she stared at him as though he had magically appeared in front of her.

“S’okay, I’ve got you…”

“Reid?”

“Jesus!” He breathed and pulled her against him. “Where’s your phone?”

She didn’t answer but instead leaned into him. She appeared exhausted and semi-catatonic so he gently directed her until she collapsed back onto the couch. He stared into her eyes but she wasn’t really there.

“Stay here, okay? I’m gonna call Claire.”

“Okay.” She mumbled and curled into herself.

Reid raced to the hallway and fumbled through her jacket until he found her phone. He scrolled to Claire’s number and dialed hoping that it was the doctor’s private line.

“Claire? It’s Spencer. I’m with Emily. …No, we’ve had some trouble. She’s had sort of a serious episode. …Yes. …Can you come to my place? Yeah… no, we were just watching a movie… No, no nothing like that… _Yes_ I’m sure, Claire… I wouldn’t _do_ that… Can you please come here? She seems sorta out of it… Okay… Yes, twenty minutes… Okay, bye.”

Reid went back to the living room and gently sank next to Prentiss on the couch. She looked up at him. Her eyes were rimmed with red. She reached out and pulled herself into his chest where she curled up as tightly as a grown woman could manage. His arms wrapped around her shoulders as her whole body began to hitch against him.

“Sorry.” She mumbled into his chest.

He closed his eyes and let out a long, shuddering breath.

_Fuck._


	4. A Change In The Weather

He didn’t see Prentiss for two weeks. Claire had suggested no contact unless she initiated it and he was still too shaken to argue about it. The team grabbed a case in Colorado and spent four days there without Prentiss. When Morgan asked why she wasn’t on the jet with them, Reid overheard Hotch tell him that she was taking some personal time to deal with a family issue. Reid wasn’t sure if that was code for something, or the lie that Prentiss had actually fed him. No one remarked on her absence after that and Reid was torn between being thankful for their discretion and yelling at them for being such apathetic friends.

During the day he remained professional, but at night he had to talk himself out of calling her. He was terrified for her. He was terrified that he had made things worse. And he was terrified that he had made a mistake in covering up her melt down in Detroit. 

She’d pulled a gun on him. _Him._ He couldn’t ignore the consequences of that. She couldn’t be trusted in the field and he felt the awesome responsibility of discussing it with Hotch weighing down on him. She would never admit that she was anything less than capable - her whole persona since her return had been based around that lie. He also knew that in going to Hotch - betraying her confidence - it would end their friendship for good. Even though he had warned her about this, she wouldn’t forgive him, and it left him disappointed and isolated in a way that he’d never experienced before. It actually _hurt_. He ached with it every time Hotch handed out assignments, every time he went on a coffee run and knew that he’d come back with one less. It split through his chest every night that he remained alone in his apartment and his phone stayed silent.

He told himself that he had been through this before. At the time, it had been all consuming and permanent. He thought that she was dead. This would just be… absence. He chided himself saying that they lost people all the time. This would be no different. And yet he felt this far more viscerally than he had before. It felt physical. It felt as if the air had been molecularly altered where she had previously existed; where once there had been a presence, he now felt it charged with emptiness. As if the universe felt compelled to remind him of the hole whenever he came in contact with it.

Reid waited as long as he could. He hoped that she would reach out to him so that he’d have an opportunity to explain what he had to do. But as the weeks passed, he knew that it was just a convenient excuse to put off the unpleasantness. He’d spent the day in court testifying and was sufficiently exhausted to get through the conversation that he needed to have without bringing too much emotion into it. By the time he had negotiated D.C. rush hour traffic and had choked down some dinner, it was late and the bullpen was dim and quiet. He walked from the elevators and saw that Hotch’s office was still lit. Of course he’d still be here…

“Reid.”

He turned and saw her leaning against the doorway to bullpen’s staff kitchen. She smiled and gave him a little wave. He stood there, shocked. She looked… _good_. Her expression was clear and focused, and some of the weariness was gone as well. She was dressed casually, as if she had just popped out to the market, not the office. Jeans, no make-up, eyes bright… he was speechless. 

“How are you?” She asked.

“Okay.”

“You look good. Were you in court today?” She nodded towards his dark, tailored suit. He had three of them that he only dusted off when he had to testify. Morgan had convinced him that establishing authority with jurors and lawyers alike could be achieved easily with the proper clothes. This suit made him look serious, confident and professional - qualities that had eluded him for most of his life.

He nodded at her. “You look good too. Rested.”

“I needed the break. I needed to think things through.” She tilted her head in acknowledgement as she walked forward, watching him closely. “I want you to know that I just came clean to Hotch. About everything.”

He stared in disbelief.

“About Detroit, my therapy, threatening you… everything.” She sighed and looked at her feet. “I want to thank you for holding off as long as you did. I knew that you’d have to say something, but it was so much better coming from me. I should never have put you in that position in the first place. It was a really crappy thing to do.”

“You told him everything?” He asked stupidly.

She nodded and shrugged her shoulders. “I had to. I’m never going to get any better unless I’m honest about all of this.”

“So what happens now?”

“Desk duty, for now. I handed over my service piece and my back-up voluntarily.” She raised her hands as if she was surrendering. “If Hotch needs me to travel on a case, I won’t be doing any fieldwork or interrogations.”

“Sounds like you’ll become another me…” He meant it to sound self-deprecating.

“Which leads me to the really important part of all of this… Reid, what I did… it’s unforgivable.” Her eyes were glassy but she didn’t look away from him. “I might have killed you and not even realized what I was doing… and the things I said… I don’t think that way about you. Not at all. Never.”

She was worrying her hands together as she leaned forward in an unconscious expression of earnestness. The corners of her mouth pulled down as she tried to remain controlled when she spoke. He figured that she could make it another 30 seconds before she broke. He reached for her hands and stilled them. There was no need to test her limits over this.

“Stop. I know that wasn’t you that night, Prentiss.”

He pulled her into him and wrapped his arms around her tightly. He felt her gasp of surprise against his neck as her body gradually eased into the embrace.

“One day I’m going to exhaust your reservoir of forgiveness.”

“Well, it won’t be today. I’m proud of you.” He felt another surprised breath flow from her. “You’re doing the right thing and I know that it’s extremely difficult.”

He pulled back a little. “You’re my friend. I’m not afraid of you.”

She smiled and he edged her cheekbone with one of his fingers. He couldn’t help himself; he wanted to sample the happiness that had broken out over her in that moment.

“Don’t get me wrong though - I’m happy that you’re no longer armed.”

She rolled her eyes at him and knocked her forehead gently into his shoulder. Relief surged through his body as she leaned against him. He was acutely aware of everywhere that she made contact with him and the sensation made him slightly giddy. It was a new reaction for him.

“So, we’re gonna be okay?” She mumbled into his shoulder.

“Yes.” 

He was sure as he said it and she leaned back to reward him with a genuine smile - one that reached her eyes and made them luminous. He was struck by how lovely she looked just as she was: natural, open, incandescent… He wondered why he had never noticed it before. 

She stared for a long moment. He saw something new surface in her eyes: heat that was banked, waiting for something accidental to give it fuel to grow. She was normally so controlled that to glimpse something so elemental in her felt like she was telling him a secret. He felt himself flush, as if the heat was contagious. He leaned in, his stare never wavering but she abruptly moved and then looked away. He dropped his arms and she slipped out of his embrace and, just like that, they were back to being Prentiss and Reid again.

“I guess that I’ll see you tomorrow then…” She had backed away but her smile remained.

“Yeah.” He felt his grin widen. “Right here.”

She chuckled and nodded. He watched her walk to the elevators and only after one had whisked her away did he turn to his desk.

“I ought to write you up, you know.”

Reid jumped at the sound of Hotch’s voice. He swore that the man was part ninja the way no one ever saw him coming. His superior was standing in his office doorway overlooking the bullpen, his arms crossed over his chest. He appeared to be scowling but that might not have meant anything. Many of Hotch’s subtler expressions could be mistaken for scowls. Reid’s mouth went dry and his pulse quickened - a reaction that he found both unpleasant and curious. Why was he nervous? He hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Are you?”

Hotch shook his head.

“Why?”

Hotch sighed and leaned heavily against his office doorway. He was silent for quite a while but Reid had learned to be patient. Insights into Hotch’s inner workings were rare.

“You should have told me about the incident with Detective Linehan in Detroit. It’s part of my job to mediate such things. God knows that it would’ve been a pleasure to knock that ignorant clock-watcher back a little.”

Reid smirked and then tried to hide it by looking at his shoes.

“I guess that I’d rather try and save a good agent who’s in trouble than follow the rule book on this one.” Hotch paused. “How bad was the incident between you two?”

Reid looked up and saw genuine concern on his boss’s face, both for him and for Prentiss.

“Really bad.”

“How worried should I be, Reid?”

Reid shook his head. “I honestly don’t know. She seemed much better today… you know how it is… you just take it one day at a time. We have to have faith in her. She’s stronger than she thinks she is.”

“She is.” Hotch’s eyes narrowed and he nodded quickly. “You made a judgment call and stood by a friend. As a team, we’re a little hit and miss in that area. _That’s_ why I’m not writing you up over this. That, and the knowledge that you were coming here tonight to tell me everything, in spite of what it would do to your friendship with Prentiss.”

“How did you know that?”

“You always do what’s right, Reid. I can depend on it like the rising of the sun.” Hotch turned and walked back into his office. “Go home - see you tomorrow.”


	5. Just Part Of The Crowd

Prentiss surprised him again by coming clean to the team. She didn’t use the term ‘Post Traumatic Stress Disorder’ but it was hard to come to any other conclusion. She explained that she needed more time to ‘re-adjust’ to her old life, and the team knew it was serious by her missing sidearm and the stony look that Hotch wore as she spoke. The team reacted in the standard fashion: expressions of concern and support that were discreetly followed up with personal offers in private afterwards. Reid caught Prentiss in a quiet moment later in the day and asked her why she did it - it seemed an odd decision for someone who had paid attention to the _perception_ of reality almost as much as reality itself for as long as he’d known her.

“It just seemed unnecessarily complicated to continue hiding it.” She shrugged. “It would be insulting to them to pretend that everything was fine - just as it was to you in the beginning. I’m more fragile than I used to be. Let them see it.”

He nodded and tried to keep the sadness that he felt for her to himself. He knew that it was part of her recovery to admit her vulnerabilities, but it pained him to hear her refer to herself as ‘fragile’. He would never think of her that way. He felt her hand squeeze his and he looked up to see her smiling at him. She picked up her coffee mug and headed back to her desk without a word. He felt a stab of guilt that in that moment, _she_ had been comforting _him_.

…

The upside to Prentiss being ‘out’ was that everyone seemed more relaxed around her. They rallied around her like a Roman phalanx and Reid saw that the gesture had a bolstering effect on her that was sorely needed. The downside was that she was rarely alone anymore. Nights off and weekends were filled with friendly outings, girls nights, and group dinners. Reid became jealous that, with the exception of their established movie night, he no longer found himself alone with Prentiss. He repeatedly attempted to shrug off the feeling. Her extensive friends network was good for her, and it was better late than never. 

Reid didn’t enjoy this newfound pettiness especially at the expense of those that he thought of as friends. It disturbed him. And he also didn’t care for the proprietary nature that his intellect had placed on his relationship with Prentiss. He told himself that he did _not_ enjoy seeing her weak and dependant on him, but he missed sharing her small triumphs with her. Now everyone participated in them. He missed the intimacy of it. Possession was not something that he had a right to, nor was it something that Prentiss would appreciate if she ever found out about it.

Reid hoped that the resentment would bleed off naturally. Friendships constantly adjusted as new outside stimuli appeared; this was no different. He attempted to focus on each of his friends in only positive ways, suppressing that which he thought was a transitory response to the element of change.

During one of Rossi’s team dinners, Prentiss went out of her way to single Reid out. She patted the seat next to her in Dave’s dining room and smiled at him. He didn’t wait for a second invitation. During the main course as Morgan was telling a long story about an ill-fated amorous adventure, she leaned into him.

“Talk about someone with a lack of follow-through…”

Reid looked at her and cocked an eyebrow.

“Morgan is a guy that I suspect has had one of your fabled thunderbolt experiences.” She smiled. “And now he’s stuck about what to do next.”

“You’ve lost me completely.”

Prentiss leaned in closer so that their shoulders touched and her breath grazed his cheek when she spoke. “Think about it: he’s always telling us these awful and hilarious stories about bad dates. What does it accomplish?”

“Humor. Socially non-threatening conviviality.”

“There you go - now, why would someone like Morgan constantly try to appear non-threatening? After all, he’s amongst friends here.”

“He’s trying to diminish his ladies man persona.” He stared at her. “You know, profiling each other is sorta taboo…”

“C’mon, this is kinda fun and you’re almost at the point that I was trying to make so keep going. _Why_ would he want to undercut his ladies man rep?”

Reid was quiet for a second and then looked around the table as the others started laughing at Morgan’s punch line. “He wants to appear approachable to someone who normally wouldn’t consider him a viable romantic partner.” Reid’s eyes froze on one face.

Prentiss nodded. “Uh-huh. She’s already told him that he’s not her type.”

“Then why is he still trying?”

Prentiss looked at him as if she couldn’t fathom his cluelessness. “Because he’s nuts about her, Reid. I’ve heard them both talk about the day they met in the bullpen and he’s been floundering in her wake ever since. And she’s crazy about him too - she just doesn’t have the confidence to imagine them together. _That’s_ why he’s always making an ass of himself with these stories.”

“But… this has been going on for _years_. Why doesn’t he just tell Garcia how he feels?”

Prentiss shrugged. “It’s rarely that easy when you’re in the middle of it. It seems that your thunderbolt experience is just as complicated as the average one. I hope that he gets around to it soon though… if he’s not careful, she might end up marrying Kevin.”

Reid stared at Morgan and then back to Prentiss, who evidently found his expression humorous. “Fascinating. As their friends, shouldn’t we attempt to intervene?”

Prentiss looked away from him for the first time. “Oh, I think that might be a bit hypocritical on our part.”

Reid sat back in his chair and stared at her profile, unable to find his next breath. He was about to ask her what she meant by that when she volunteered to clear the dishes as the rest of the gang moved into Rossi’s den to play cards.


	6. It's Not Science, Its A Game

Reid was banned from playing poker with the team. He never cheated, but with an eidetic memory, a childhood spent in Vegas, and a head for complex pattern recognition and mathematics, he was nearly impossible for an amateur player to beat. It took most of the fun out of the game, and no one enjoyed Morgan’s epic sulking fits when he lost. As a result, Reid had become the universal dealer which still offered him the opportunity to stack the deck in favor of one team member or another. He didn’t always do it and sometimes he made it obvious enough for others to see, but he still found it amusing.

That night he was playing it straight instead focusing on the expressions and demeanors of his friends as they worked diligently on their poker faces. While he spent a considerable amount of time studying Garcia and Morgan, the lion’s share of the game was spent observing Prentiss and thinking about their dinner conversation. He really wanted clarification on her last statement. Did she equate their relationship to Morgan and Garcia’s? Did she think that they had moved to an area beyond friendship? Or was she trying to push them in that direction? He hated trying to figure this sort of thing out. It often gave him a headache and little else.

After an hour of play, Prentiss began to shift uncomfortably in her chair. She transferred her cards to her left hand and let her right side go limp. A few more hands were played before Hotch spoke up.

“You should let Reid see to that, Prentiss.” He didn’t take his eyes off his cards.

“Pardon?”

“The neck pain. It’s radiating to your right side now.” Hotch doubled Rossi’s bid with an unreadable look before turning back to Prentiss. “After the car bombing in Boston, Reid was very helpful with the lingering muscle pain.”

“I can vouch for that too.” Garcia chirped in. “After I was attacked, Doctor Magic Fingers over there used to come over all the time to help me work the kinks out.”

Everyone gave Garcia a look. 

“Holy Unrestrained Perversion, Batman! And I thought that I had a dirty mind…” She rolled her eyes. “You people need to join some dating sites or invest in some quality internet porn because The Font of All Digital Wisdom will not double as your collective inappropriate work-fantasy voodoo doll.”

“Too late, sugar.” Morgan smirked and everyone pretended to ignore it.

Reid felt his face grow hot. “It’s not magic, it’s neurobiology.”

“Whatever.” Hotch murmured. “You have skills in this area, Reid. Go help out Prentiss - her squirming is distracting.”

“A freight train rumbling through Rossi’s living room couldn’t distract you right now.” Prentiss groused.

“C’mon, Reid, help out a lady in distress…” Morgan smiled.

“I’m the dealer…”

“J.J., you take over. Reid, fix Prentiss’s neck - that’s an order.” Hotch was staring down Rossi.

“Jesus, are we all done now? Does anyone want to play cards?” Rossi snipped. “It’s like playing with a bunch of meth-addled ferrets…” 

J.J. took the deck from Reid and shoved him out of his chair. He shuffled around the table until he was behind Prentiss. Suppressing the blush that Hotch had initiated, Reid tried not to mentally curse his boss.

“Where does it hurt the most?” He kept his voice low as if he was asking for a secret.

She tried to look over her right shoulder but winced and stopped. She pointed to the base of her neck with her left hand. “Here, but there’s an intermittent, sharp pain along the shoulder ridge as well.”

“Here?” Reid rotated a thumb into a nerve cluster but got no reaction. “What about here?”

Prentiss tensed and swallowed an involuntary sound.

“Okay. There might be some discomfort, but let me know if it starts to hurt.” He bent close to her ear. “And I’d fold if I were you.”

“You know something I don’t?” He heard the smile in her voice.

Reid shrugged and began to feel out Prentiss’s shoulder. She folded on the next turn and was dealt out in favor of watching the others out-razz, out-cajole, and out-stare one another. Reid watched her. At first it was to determine the locus of her pain. She held a lot of tension in her shoulders - it was fairly common. His fingers followed the muscle groups along the shoulder line until he worked back to the spinal connection. He counted down to the T2 vertebrae, inserted his thumb and gently twisted up and under. The reaction was instantaneous. Prentiss’s back straightened, her shoulders aligned and he heard her cover a moan with a forced cough. Reid pressed against the node again and circled with increasing pressure. He smiled as he watched her try to avoid slouching into him. The same movement had caused Hotch to declare that Reid was a divine entity, so her restraint was admirable. 

“Better?” He murmured.

“That’s… remarkable.” Her voice was a little breathy.

He noticed a slight flush colour her neck and trail down her chest until it was lost to her neckline. He trailed his fingers up along her spine until he reached the base of her neck. Leaving one hand there, he deliberately traced a finger along the artery and hooked it under her hair to brush it across her back and over the other shoulder. She didn’t make a sound but her flush darkened and a freckling of goosebumps moved across her shoulders and neck. He spread both hands along the base of her neck and warmed the skin as he moved in ever widening circles out towards her shoulders. Her head leaned back and he saw her expression for the first time: surprise.

“You okay?” He asked.

She stared up at him, her usual controlled expression gone. She wore the look that she reserved for movie night, for him. It was intimacy born of years of familiarity, and it was frank and wholeheartedly grateful. While he had always viewed this look through the prism of friendship, it suddenly shifted into an expression that produced a full body flush in him. Her eyes held him steady, her mouth parted slightly in a thankful smile. Small smudges of pink shaded her cheeks; he wanted to brush them to see if they were warm to the touch. It wasn’t wanton. It wasn’t obvious. It was just… different from what it was before. But he had to wonder, was she really different, or was his perception of this moment _making_ it different? 

“Magic fingers.” She murmured and gave him a sarcastic smile.

“I told you, its neurobiology.” He couldn’t help smiling back.

His hands moved along the ridge of her shoulder, his fingertips dipping just under the neckline of her top. There was no reason for him to move so far from the spine, she hadn’t indicated any pain there, but he continued anyway. His fingertips circled, appearing and disappearing beneath her shirt collar. His index finger landed on a smooth, thin line that held firmly to her shoulder. He traced it back and forth over the ridge of her. Prentiss didn’t look away, didn’t warn him off. He saw the flicker of heat surge in her stare and it mesmerized him. His index finger hooked under the smooth strap, lightly stroking the skin underneath. She breathed out and her face became serious.

“This has nothing to do with science of any kind.”

Reid’s hands retreated to the safety of her upper back as he realized that he found himself aroused in a room full of profilers. The din of the game came back to him, and he was keenly aware that he had crossed a friendly line in full view of his extended family. He felt his face turn scarlet and his mortification immediately took care of his arousal. A quick scan of the room indicated that no one had noticed. How was that possible? Was it intoxication? Willful denial? Poker couldn’t possibly be that engrossing…

He looked down at Prentiss and found her facing forward apparently newly-entranced by the game. Her flush was fading and it threw cold water on him as he smoothed her shirt across her shoulders and cleared his throat.

“That should help for a while.”

“Thanks.”

He returned to his chair as J.J. relinquished the dealer duties to him. She turned to look at Prentiss.

“See? You look more relaxed now. He’s kinda amazing, isn’t he?”

“Yeah.” Prentiss said without looking at him. “Amazing.”

…

Reid waited a polite period of time and then announced that he had to leave. Morgan began to bait him about his ‘beauty sleep’ but when J.J. announced that she had to leave as well, everyone gave up and turned back to the game. He breathed a sigh of relief as he made it to Rossi’s hallway without being stopped.

“Wanna share a cab?” J.J. was shrugging into her coat.

He smiled. “Yeah, that’d be great.”

J.J. whipped out her phone that probably contained every relevant and important contact number to anything ever in the history of the universe and set about rousling up a taxi.

“No desire to see the outcome of the Hotch vs. Rossi smackdown?” He turned back again and saw Prentiss leaning against the hall closet.

“Not really. ‘Sides they look like they’re settling in for the night.” He didn’t know where to look and felt stupid acting like a nervous teenager around her.

“Spence, the cab’ll be here in 10 minutes.” J.J. spoke up over his shoulder. “I’ll meet you outside, okay? I gotta call Will. ‘Night, Emily!”

Prentiss waved and Reid nodded.

“She still calls you Spence.”

“She’s the only one who does.”

“She’s the only one who can get away with it.”

“That’s not true.” He turned to face her and had no problem looking her in the eyes this time.

“Thanks for the neck rub, Spence.” She said quietly.

“You’re welcome.”

They stared in silence for a moment before she smiled and rolled her eyes at him.

“Well, this turned out awkward, didn’t it? I just wanted to spend a little time around you again…”

“Oh.” He smiled and looked at his feet. “Maybe we should try being horribly obvious with our intentions… subtlety isn’t serving us too well.”

She laughed and he felt relieved. “I miss us hanging out, you know? Just the two of us. I miss how easy it is. How quiet it is.”

“We still have movie night.”

“Sure, but you know what I mean - I know that you do. I see how much it’s been bothering you too.”

“You have? Damn, I thought that I was covering that better.”

“I don’t think that it’s obvious, except to me.”

“Well, I miss you as well. Anytime you’d like to fit me into your demanding schedule…” He smiled as he trailed off.

“I’ll have my people call your people.” She smiled and pulled him in for a hug.

He sighed and held her close. She rubbed his back lightly and he found it soothing. A honk sounded from outside and he straightened. He felt her lips brush his cheek in a quick kiss goodbye. That was new - when had they started that?

“See you at the office.” She turned and walked back to the game.


	7. Away

Reid was in Texas for a custodial interview of a serial child molester on death row, Willem Deeks. The man hadn’t seen daylight in almost twenty years and with his execution date fast approaching, Deeks had decided to become chatty. Reid wasn’t sure why Hotch had assigned the interview to him instead of Rossi or Morgan, but he suspected his boss had issued some sort of silent challenge and he was determined to succeed in spite of his personal discomfort in the situation.

The three day interview window was grueling. The first day had been wasted on fruitless bargaining for a stay of execution in return for various crime details. They knew about all of his victims and after twenty years, unrecorded crime details wouldn’t turn the Governor’s head, although they were precisely the sort of things that would help Reid flesh out a profile template for the Unit. The second day had been more successful once Reid had established a kind of unflappable, passive authority at which he was unusually adept. The details flowed after that: childhood incidents, pubescent kinks, and events that informed and strengthened the monster’s evolving pathology. Reid shoved his disgust into a dark, secure corner of himself and spent most of the second night piecing together the nuggets that he needed from the mental flotsam that had been recorded during the interview. By the time that they got to the end of the third day and Deeks was describing his last victim in lurid detail, Reid realized that he had hit a wall when he looked down and saw that he hadn’t transcribed any notes for the whole day. He terminated the interview and returned to the hotel, his hands shaking so hard that he had to give the key card three tries before he made it into his room.

He showered, made some coffee and then watched it cool in a mug on the bedside table. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been staring when his cell phone vibrated next to the mug.

“Hello?”

“Hey.” Her voice sounded so clear and immediate that he almost looked around the room for her. “How’s it going down there?”

He sighed. “I screwed up today. Deeks spent five hours telling me every little thing about his first fifteen victims and I didn’t record any of it.”

“What? What happened?”

“He was going on about how they called out to him, how he was protecting them from sin by mutilating them afterwards, he described parts of them that he loved - as if they were dolls with interchangeable outfits… and I just couldn’t focus. I couldn’t separate myself from the victims. Towards the end I was trying so hard to be objective that I broke out into a sweat from the effort.”

She was quiet for a long time.

“What were you thinking about when he was talking?”

“I was thinking about my gun.” He murmured.

“Spencer?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s okay. Maybe it’s why Hotch sent you in the first place.”

“He sent me to fail?”

“No, he sent you because you needed this experience to take you to the next level. You _remember_ everything that Deeks said, right?”

“Of course.”

“Then you didn’t screw up. You got emotional but you still got everything that you need to build the template. You’re the only agent in the Unit who could do both at the same time. Hotch is trying to train your impulses as Gideon once trained your intellect. He knows that child cases get under your skin, and he wants you to be more than just the contents of your left hemisphere. Emotions have value in our line of work too, you know.”

Reid leaned back across the bed and closed his eyes. He told himself that it was just tension and exhaustion that caused tears to press against his eyelids. He draped an arm across his face to force them back.

“I’m glad you called.” He said eventually.

“It’s the least I can do.” 

Her voice was so soft, so near - he wanted to wrap it around himself to thaw the frightening numbness that had seeped into him. This wasn’t supposed to be how it worked. _He_ was supposed to bolster _her_. That had been his plan. He shouldn’t have crumbled doing an interview that an agent fresh from the academy could handle. He felt uncomfortably vulnerable, but, strangely, he wasn’t embarrassed that she knew about it. He felt an emotion building in him: something gathering momentum, crawling up his throat, eager to see the daylight…

“But it’s not the reason why I called.” She interrupted his thought.

“It’s not? Why then?”

“It’s movie night.”

He chuckled a little, a part of him relieved that the conversation was back on familiar ground. “Oh yeah. I’m only four states from my apartment at the moment… lemme go warm up the Tardis and I’ll be there shortly.”

“Smartass. You got cable in your room? AMC is showing _Three Faces of Eve_ Wanna watch it with me?”

He smiled one of those big grins that made him self-conscious in public but never in front of her. He reached for the remote. “I’d love to.”


	8. Good Intentions

Reid didn’t realize what assumptions he was making about Prentiss’s personal life until he found himself standing in front of her apartment at 10:15p.m. on a Tuesday night. He hadn’t even called first. What if she was out? What if she had company? His idea suddenly didn’t seem very good - in fact it seemed presumptive. She might be offended by it. He spend five full minutes standing there thinking out his options before he raised his hand and knocked on her door.

_What phase of the strategy is this?_

_Shut up._

She answered the door and blinked in surprise to see him. She was dressed in old jeans and a faded tee that had the phrase “These are not the droids you’re looking for” across the chest. His mouth twitched as he tried not to smile.

“Hi.”

“Hey.” He rocked on his heels. “I’m not, umm… I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

“No, not at all. I was just reading.” She stared at him for a moment and then laughed self-consciously. “Sorry - where are my manners - would you like to come in?”

“Actually, I was going to ask you to come out. Now.”

“Uh… well…” She looked down at herself.

“You can come as you are. It’s nothing fancy and we’re not meeting up with anyone.” Reid rolled forward onto his toes and tried to sound casual. “It’ll be fun…”

She gave him a doubtful look but then shrugged, grabbed a jacket and her keys while ramming her feet into a busted pair of Vans. “Okay Reid, but get me home by midnight or I’ll turn into a pumpkin.”

…

Reid drove them out of the city towards Loudon County. He talked when she asked questions but otherwise stayed silent. He’d made himself a promise to follow her lead this evening: if she wanted to talk, they would. If not, that was okay too.

“Where are we going?” She asked once they’d reached roads without streetlights.

“I could give you a county name but basically we’re going to a field in the middle of nowhere.”

“Wow, okay. Do you also have a roll of plastic sheeting and a shovel in your trunk?”

He looked over at her and saw her smirk reflected in the passenger window. “That’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny.”

“Listen, it’s a surprise, okay? A good one. So be patient and quit making serial killer jokes.”

“Do they creep you out?”

“The jokes? Yes, they do.”

“Good.”

“What do you mean ‘good’?”

“I mean that after seven years it proves that you’re still you and that you still have the ability to be horrified by what we see. You haven’t been corrupted by it and that makes me happy. It’s part of the reason why I called when you went to interview Deeks.”

He looked over at her again but her reflection had become serious. He wanted her to expand on her thought but she remained silent and he didn’t feel that he had the right to press the issue.

They drove for another twenty minutes until Reid finally pulled off the road and into a large dark field. He rolled the car to a stop on the crest of a moderate hill at the furthest edge of the lot and killed the ignition. With the running lights extinguished, they were suddenly plunged into absolute darkness.

“I feel another serial killer joke coming on…” Prentiss warned and Reid noticed a genuine note of fear in her voice.

“Give your eyes a few moments to adjust.” He said gently. “There’s plenty of light to see by.”

He rooted around in the backseat until he found his car blanket and the supply box that he had packed for this outing, then he bounded out of the car and went around to the passenger side. He opened the door for Prentiss.

“C’mon. Hop up on the hood.”

“The hood of the car?”

“Yep.”

He bounced up and then slid over to give her room. Even in the dark he could make out her confusion.

“You can stay in the car if you’d like but you can see much more from here.” He patted the car hood.

She shrugged and popped up onto the hood next to him. He lay back against the windshield and placed one hand behind his head to cushion it. She was still staring at him.

“It won’t be long now.”

He felt her slowly lie out beside him and let out an exasperated sigh. He rolled up onto one elbow and produced the car blanket. He spread it out over her as she stared at him.

“It’s a bit cool out tonight…”

“Reid, what are we doing here?”

He rolled back to his supine position and smiled. “We’re waiting.”

They lay together on the hood of his car for several minutes in silence. In that time Reid became aware of the noises that people filter out on a regular basis. The breeze in the grass, the chatter of night insects and small things that were just always out of sight, even the gradual relaxation of Prentiss’s breathing next to him in long, measured intervals. As a PTSD sufferer, sound would always be a trigger for her and he wondered how she was dealing with that new reality. Everyone had watched as Hotch grew quieter and more cautious after the Foyet attack, and Reid waited for Prentiss to do the same. At first he found it challenging to be quiet with her, but he discovered that it had taught him restraint and clarity. He wasn’t sure if his efforts made any difference to her, but her necessities made a noticeable impact on him.

He stretched out his hand and found hers. Her fingers wrapped around his without hesitation and it made him feel as if he had achieved something - like unraveling a riddle. He heard her sigh and then she began to speak.

“This reminds me of a trip my family made to Australia when I was young. Mom was on some kind of official tour or something and decided that it was a family-appropriate opportunity.”

Her voice took on the edge that she used whenever discussing her mother. It was a dynamic that he’d always been curious about, but that tone let him know that it was not a topic for discussion unless she made it so. Her voice changed again - this time softer and more reflective.

“We were visiting a farming community in an area known as the Blue Mountains. And before you ask - yes, the mountains _were_ blue but it was an effect caused by light refraction at that altitude. I asked.”

He smiled. “Nerd.”

“Anyway,” Her voice hid a chuckle. “One night I couldn’t sleep and slipped out of the farmhouse that we were staying in. The farm was on an elevated mesa so we were high up in the mountain range but it was also remarkably flat. I sat down in one of the fields and looked up at the sky - it was a new moon so it pitch black out. The only difference between land and sky were the stars. The land spread out for miles in every direction and if I blurred my vision a little I imagined that I could almost _see_ the curvature of the horizon. It was amazing - for the first time, I understood that I was just one of billions of organisms clinging to the surface of orb spinning through space. It was so peaceful. I fell asleep there.”

“How old were you?”

“Sixteen. When I returned to the farmhouse the next morning, Mom let me have it. She thought that I’d been kidnapped or run away. She didn’t believe that I’d spent the night asleep in a cow field. Her exact words were ‘you’re too smart to do anything so pointless’.” Prentiss paused. “This place isn’t the same but it’s quite peaceful…”

Reid leaned back against the car and stared at the sky. He wished that he’d known her then. Their shared perspective might have saved them both some grief and ostracism. While time, distance, and social standing made that fantasy impossible, it did allow them to lie on the hood of his car, holding hands and watching the sky over twenty years later. He mentally tried to shake the thought from his head; he reminded himself that he didn’t believe in fate. 

A flash in the corner of his eye drew his attention. He saw two more in quick succession and knew that it had begun. He raised their joined hands towards the anomaly and pointed.

“It’s starting. There… do you see?”

Prentiss remained still for several moments and then a burst of light streaks appeared and faded in a complicated syncopy.

“Yes!” She breathed and squeezed his hand.

The meteor shower dazzled in fits and starts, sometimes exploding across the night sky and other times fizzling out like a spent match. Reid had hundreds of astronomical facts dancing on the tip of his tongue but kept his peace and pulled out the supply kit, which he offered to Prentiss.

“Hungry?”

She looked away from the sky long enough to see the tin box of fruit and sharp cheese that he pushed towards her. He uncapped a small thermos and poured out a measure of warmth that added hints of dark cherries and vanilla to the night air. He passed the cup to her wordlessly and her fingers brushed against his as she accepted it. He lay back against his hand and munched on an apple slice as he watched the show unfold. After a minute, he heard the car hood re-adjust as she leaned back against the windshield once more.

“Thank you, Spencer.” 

Her words were weighted as if they were going to be balanced out by another statement that she couldn’t seem to articulate. He let them hang in the air with the space debris that scorched the sky over their heads. It could burn up as they did; he didn’t need more - it was enough to experience the gratitude that pulsed around her. He reached for another slice of fruit while she waited for him to speak.

“You’re welcome, Emily.”

He refused to say anything more.


	9. Failed Strategy

The meteor shower lasted almost forty-five minutes. By the time it was over he could see that the blanket and the warm tea had made her dozy. He packed up the supply kit but refused the folded blanket that she held out to him.

“Sleep in the car if you’d like. It’s a long ride back into the city.”

They hadn’t been on the road for more than a few minutes when he looked over and saw her leaning against the passenger window, eyes closed with the car blanket tucked up under her chin. He wondered if she was making progress with her sleep deprivation. There were so many aspects of her recovery that he was curious about, but he couldn’t bring himself to invade her privacy. He knew that she’d tell him, even if it made her uncomfortable, but he didn’t want to be her parole officer. He wondered if Claire had come back to discussing their dynamic again. It felt strange that Prentiss might talk about him with a therapist. There were always things that friends didn’t know about one another - things thought but never said - but it felt wrong that another person would know about them instead of him. 

Reid mulled over the things that he thought and never said to Prentiss - to _Emily_. He thought about that day at the hospital when J.J. said that she was dead and he had waited until he found a janitorial closet before he broke down, shamelessly crying like a child. He thought about the day that she walked back into the BAU conference room, miraculously living and real, and how it had been the only time that he’d ever had a violent thought towards her. He thought about the night that she pulled her gun on him and the only thing that terrified him more than being shot was that she might be beyond saving. He thought about the poker game at Rossi’s house and how the urge to taste her, to allow his hands to roam over her had almost been enough for him to do something that would’ve embarrassed them both. And how that impulse had changed into a recurring dream for him…

_You do not get involved with someone in recovery._

He knew that and he understood why. He wished that he could _feel_ it as well.

Prentiss was changed and he realized that he was changed as well. He didn’t bother questioning whether it was perception or reality because he no longer had a tangible method for distinguishing the two. Furthermore, he had no idea how much Prentiss had changed since his own emotions now clouded the issue. She loved him but he couldn’t be certain that she wanted him as well. And if she did, it could simply be a by-product of the intimacy that they had created around her condition. Not only did he not want to be her parole officer but he also didn’t want to be her crutch either.

He spent the rest of the drive assiduously thinking about anything other than his predicament with Prentiss. It depressed him and the evening had been pleasant - he didn’t want to ruin it with his tendency towards over analysis. His final thought on the matter was that there was nothing wrong with their relationship as it stood now. It was expansive, familiar, and compassionate - many friendships couldn’t boast as much. Better to let sleeping dogs lie. For now.

He pulled up in front of her building and parked. The lack of motion roused her and she blinked rapidly as she tried to refold the car blanket.

“How long did I sleep?”

“Almost an hour.”

“Sorry.” She yawned. “Isn’t there an unwritten car trip rule that when driving at night the passenger has an obligation to help keep the driver awake?”

“I dunno but it sounds very sensible to me. It doesn’t really matter; we’re here and not upside down in a ditch somewhere in rural Virginia.” He smiled. “C’mon, I’ll walk you up.”

They rode the elevator in silence and he trailed behind her as they walked the corridor to her apartment door. _She’ll thank you. Just say goodnight and go._

She slipped her key into the lock and opened the door slightly before she turned to face him.

“Thanks for tonight, Reid. It was perfect.”

_~~She’ll thank you.~~ Just say goodnight and go._

“It was my pleasure. I thought that you might appreciate something different. And I know that you prefer quiet.”

She smiled and he felt himself doing the same. Contentment seemed to infect them both and neither one made a move to end the evening.

_Just say goodnight and go._

“I don’t know how you come up with these ideas, or how you know that I’ll like them…” She took a step towards him. “I guess that I’m easier to read than I thought.”

He wanted to kiss her. Just a quick peck on the cheek to seal the perfection of the evening. It would be okay - they did that now, didn’t they?

_~~She’ll thank you.~~ Kiss her, say goodnight and go._

“I don’t think that you’re an easy read at all. I’m probably just benefiting from a little random luck.”

Reid leaned in quickly before he lost his nerve and brushed his lips against the corner of her mouth. Her lips were soft and he pressed against them for a second longer than would be considered friendly. His hand stroked the line of her jaw as he retreated and stepped away.

“Goodnight, Emily.”

_~~She’ll thank you. Kiss her, say goodnight~~ and go._

Her smiled faded a little as she stared at him. Her eyes flicked momentarily to his lips and then back to his eyes. She pressed against the door and slowly backed into the darkness of her apartment, watching him as she went. The shadows swallowed her but she left the door open. His pulse thundered in his ears.

_Go. Just go._

He walked forward and laid his hand on the door handle. He’d close it for her and head back to the elevator. They see each other in the office tomorrow and tell everyone about the meteors that they missed out on. Garcia would beg to be included next time.

He looked down at his hand on the handle and then walked through, closing the door behind him. The darkness was absolute as it had been those first few moments in the field. She pressed into him, pushing him backwards. Her lips found his and any hope of leaving evaporated. Her tongue brushed his lips and his hands pulled her against him. The moan she breathed into his mouth broke loose something within him; something that he didn’t know had been waiting for it patiently. 

He wanted her. Here. Up against the wall. With his hands in her hair and between her thighs. With his name on her lips.

_You don’t get involved with someone in recovery._

He’d never been in her apartment before but he pushed back forcefully until they both hit something solid. He bit down hard on her lips, his hands roughly moving between them down her torso. He found the fly of her jeans and clumsily undid it as he felt her trying to toe off her shoes at the same time. Her jeans were tight and he only managed to get them halfway down her legs before she took over. He fumbled in his back pocket, his hands shaking. Finding his wallet, he thumbed out the condom packet that had lived there for too long. He tried not to estimate its expiry date.

_You should go. Just go._

Prentiss pulled him back against her as her hands snaked down to his own fly. Reid brushed her away. No time. He couldn’t think about being gracious. He couldn’t think at all. He pulled himself out, awkwardly rolled the condom on, pushed Prentiss up the wall and then was abruptly inside her.

“Sorry.” He managed to grunt as she gasped.

He hooked one of her thighs over his hip and thrust hard and fast. Unseen picture frames on the wall thumped in sympathy with his rhythm. Prentiss reached down and squeezed him - hard. Bright spots popped at the edge of his vision and he shut his eyes tight as he tamped down on himself.

_Nononono… don’t do that…_

“Don’t!” He growled.

“What’s the matter?” She moaned in his ear.

“Too much…”

“Then work _harder_.”

She bit him. He thrust deeper and with each pass he pushed her further up the wall, her jacket making an odd squeaking sound when she moved. He hooked her other leg over his hip, basically suspending her using his hands and pelvis, and let gravity do some of the work for him. She was squirming and sucking his neck. He was gasping into her skin, desperate to control himself. He hadn’t planned this - he should have thought ahead. This wasn’t how he wanted it to be. All those good intentions…

_You should’ve let sleeping dogs lie._

He thought about stopping - it was brief, but it happened. He pulled back from her lips and pressed his cheek hard against hers, gasping in a vain effort at control. She stilled against him but continued to hold him close. Her breath came in quick, shallow puffs against his neck as they stood balancing on the edge of a decision. He felt a hand weave into the hair at the base of his head and begin to caress him into a trance. Slow circles, soft pads of pressure moving and driving away the tension that he hadn’t realized had jackknifed him to attention… It felt like an echo of the poker game, only this time no one was hiding their hand.

“Spence,” She breathed into him. “Don’t stop. Please.”

Reid’s grip around her tightened until he feared that he might hurt her. He left a warm, wet mark at the base of her neck and listened to her gasp as he did it. Suddenly, her hand in his hair dug into him. Her teeth caught the edge of his ear. He rolled his hips, she swore and then called out his name, and that was it. He picked up where he left off - not attempting to ease them from one moment to the next. Prentiss began to moan to his rhythm and he short-circuited. His mind blew out; what was once a power station of thought became a lone candle illuminating his sole desire to come. Passing a hand across her abdomen as she bumped and writhed against his movements, and he dug his fingers into the flesh of her hips. Then, his world dimmed. He didn’t hear her anymore; he didn’t pay attention to what she was doing. He just pushed until all he could feel was his forehead in her shoulder, his hands clutching her waist, and his cock pinning her to him. He cried out, broken and uneven against her. Pushing them against the wall was all he could do to prevent his legs from giving out and sending them crashing to the floor.

_Now you’ve done it._

She was breathing heavily into his neck, her hands clutching his jacket for all they were worth. He didn’t know if she’d come. He was once again overwhelmed by embarrassment. How had he let this moment turn out like this? A quick, grasping ‘stander’ in her front foyer? He should’ve stopped at the kiss…

He slowly lowered her until her feet touched the floor. He was thankful that he couldn’t see her face; he was doing a fine job of shaming himself and wouldn’t need the extra encouragement. He gently pulled away from her.

“Bathroom?” He whispered.

“Down the hall. Second door on your left.” 

He felt along the wall until he was safely enclosed in the washroom. He flicked on the light and caught sight of himself in the mirror: mouth red and swollen, clothes askew, his limp member hanging guiltily from his open fly. Jesus. He cleaned himself quickly and didn’t look in the mirror again. He straightened his clothes as best he could and tried to avoid any sign that he had used her bathroom. It was best to pretend that he’d never been there at all. He took a few deep breaths and then exited out into the hallway.

Prentiss had turned a desk lamp on so that they weren’t in total darkness. She remained as he left her: in her tee and a three quarter length jacket, her jeans and shoes still crumpled on the floor. She leaned casually, one long bare leg bent so that her foot braced her against the wall. It was incredibly sexy to him but he couldn’t look her in the face to gage what she was feeling.

He walked up and reached for her hand. It was readily given and he was surprised when he felt a squeeze. It gave him a small measure of courage.

“I apologize - I didn’t intend for that to happen. Or to happen quite like that…”

“Spence, look at me.”

He met her eyes and saw only the same openness and intimacy that he had seen during Rossi’s poker game. He breathed in suddenly and she smiled. The kiss that she left on his lips tasted of dark cherries. He leaned forward so that their brows touched.

“You okay?” He whispered.

She nodded against him.

“Are _we_ okay?”

“Yes.” The answer was immediate and absolute.

“Thank you.” He kissed her, slowly and softly.

They stood together in her hallway for a while: she, holding his hand, and he stroking her face. He knew that he had to make his exit and decided that there wasn’t a graceful way to do it. He dove in with both feet.

“I should probably go.”

“Okay.”

“See you tomorrow?” 

It sounded stupid and awkward to him, but she just smiled and opened the door. He kissed her again quickly, and then it was over - she was on one side of the door and he the other. He walked to the elevator in a haze. The doors opened and swallowed him and as he leaned against the handrail, he felt the press of his wallet against him. Suddenly, the haze cleared into sharp-edged reality.

_What phase of the strategy was that?_

He swore under his breath and gently knocked his head against the wall of the elevator cab.


	10. Give In

By the time he’d reached the office, he’d worked himself into a twitchy knot of doubt, embarrassment, and self-recrimination. Despite Prentiss’s assertions to the contrary, he didn’t believe that their relationship would weather the previous evening gracefully. He’d spent all night considering the possible consequences of the act as well as his colossal lack of foresight and self-control that allowed it to happen. He’d always thought of himself as a better person - a better friend - than someone who would recklessly throw aside a precious friendship for an awkward one-night stand. He usually eschewed shame, but found himself swimming in it up to his eyeballs that morning as she entered the bullpen and took her seat opposite his own. He watched and waited.

“Morning.” She chirped.

“Hi.”

“Is there a briefing?”

“Uh, yeah, in twenty minutes. No new case just a consultation update.”

“Cool.” She looked across the divider at him. “I’m under-caffeinated. You need one?”

He blinked and lifted his mug to show her.

“Okay then.”

She walked off towards the staff kitchen and he watched her go with disbelief. She was no different at all. Could it really be that easy? Would they put it behind them and continue on as if it hadn’t happened? Part of him was relieved at the thought, and another part of him quietly seethed. He shrugged off both sensations and told himself to act the role that was required of him even if his memory wouldn’t allow him to forget.

He took his files and headed for the conference room. Minutes later Prentiss and Morgan arrived chatting and smiling, their own consult files under their arms.

“So, what did you tell him?” Prentiss sipped her coffee.

“Nothing. It’s not my business.”

Prentiss rolled her eyes at Morgan. “Bullshit. If you feel awkward about it - that’s one thing. But don’t stand there and try to convince me that what happens between Kevin and Garcia isn’t your business too.”

“It isn’t.” Morgan said a little too emphatically as Prentiss held up her hand indicating that she’d said her peace on the matter. “What’s with you anyway? I haven’t seen you this feisty in a while.”

“Nothing’s new.”

Morgan looked at her and then grinned fiendishly. “Did you fall in love? C’mon, you can tell me… Did you fall in love and now you want every one to do the same?”

“Please, Morgan…” Prentiss arched an eyebrow.

“Seriously, you look different… like the old Emily…” Morgan caught himself after he said it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way…”

Prentiss smiled and took her seat, patting the one next to her for Morgan. “It’s okay - I know what you meant. It’s all right to talk about it, Derek - there’s no need to make it the elephant in the room. I just got a good night’s sleep - that’s all.”

“Well, if you have a secret for that, please share it with the class.”

“Just a book.” Prentiss smiled. “I took an old favorite to bed.”

Reid made sure that he didn’t look up from his case files.

“That doesn’t work for me.” Morgan said.

“Usually it doesn’t work for me either - I don’t like to look back. But there’s something to be said for taking something familiar and trusted, and suddenly finding a new dimension to it that you never appreciated before. You know what I’m saying?”

“Sure. You’re talking about perception. Like how reading _Catcher In The Rye_ is different now than when you were a teenager… you’re experiences alter your perception of the story.”

“Exactly. Like I said, I don’t do it that often, but I found it very refreshing. And I got my best night’s sleep in almost six months because of it.”

“Huh.” Morgan nodded in approval. “What about you, Reid? Ever had your perception of something change when you revisit it?”

“An eidetic memory makes that almost impossible. I recall every word of _Catcher In The Rye_ exactly as I read it. The words don’t change.”

“That’s not really what I meant, kid.”

“Perception is an emotional filter.” He looked to Morgan, then to Prentiss, and then quickly away. “You know that I’m not good with emotions.”

…

Reid stared at the blinking cursor on his laptop and sighed in frustration. His philosophy thesis was at a standstill. His thoughts were getting in the way of his _thinking_. Normally study, research, and writing were meditative for him, but now he found that he couldn’t lose himself in theories and syllogisms. Every thought, no matter how obscure, led him back to his personal predicament. It was irritating. 

It had been a week since the meteor shower. He hadn’t seen Prentiss outside the office since then. They’d even missed movie night due to a local case that ate up 72 hours and almost all of their energy. The more time passed, the more he worried about the future of their friendship. He wanted - he _needed_ \- to talk about what happened between them but he was paralyzed about how to start the conversation. And he didn’t know what he was going to say either. Prentiss had been even-keeled and diffident towards him at work. It was surprising. And perhaps more telling, it was almost the exact opposite of how he felt.

He knew that it had been a mistake, but he couldn’t deny that he’d wanted it to happen. He wanted it to happen again but only if he could establish some things first. 

Reid slammed his laptop closed and headed for bed. Staring at his thesis thinking about Prentiss would only make him angry and horny. He could take care of one of those issues at least, and preferred to be comfortable while doing it. Afterward he might be able to think more clearly. He turned out the lights in his apartment and changed, all the while grumbling about his infinite ability to procrastinate. He was staring himself down in the bathroom mirror when he heard a knocking at his front door. He went to it telling his pulse to stop anticipating things, but then gave up after he looked through the peephole and saw his visitor.

“Hi.” She looked a little nervous. “Sorry… it’s late. I should have called first.”

He didn’t say anything but backed up and invited her inside.

“Did I wake you?” She looked at his clothes.

“No. I was going to lie down but I doubt that sleep would’ve come any time soon.”

He reached out and took her coat on instinct. The backs of his fingers brushed the nape of her neck as he drew it from her. That was instinct too, but a different kind. He turned away quickly to hide the shaking in his hands.

_Ask her. She’s here - just ask her._

“Why are you here?” His voice was almost a whisper.

“You know why.”

He felt the heat of her against his back. Being that close was almost more intense than touching. He shook his head and hung up her coat in his closet.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why?”

He stood staring at the closet door. He couldn’t turn back to face her.

“Because of what you’re trying to work through.” He sighed. “Because this doesn’t fit me well - I’m not good at… at _casual_.”

“You think that this is casual?”

Her voice was even and quiet, and it compelled him to turn and look at her. Prentiss’s face held that open look that she reserved for their private moments. It asked him to be honest with her.

“I want to help you with your recovery, Emily. I’ve always wanted that. I’m not sure that… _this_ ” He gestured between the two of them. “Wouldn’t damage that effort. Sometimes support can mutate into dependency.”

Something flickered in her eyes and then was gone before he could identify it. “You think that I’ve mistaken supportive intimacy for romantic affection. Fine. But I wasn’t the only one in that hallway, or at that poker table. Tell me that its something that you don’t want for yourself, and I’ll leave and put the incident behind me for good.”

“You could do that?”

“If you asked me to, Spencer - yes.”

All he had to do was tell her ‘no’ and they could label this as a slight detour and get back to the main road of who they’d always been together. Anyone can make a mistake; it didn’t have to define their friendship if they didn’t let it. He looked down and tried to marshal the will and the expression that he required to do what was needed. Instead his face broke into lines of pain. His hands clenched and he raised them as if he was preparing to strike out at an invisible target.

“I don’t understand… We’ve been friends for years and I never felt this way, never saw you like this. Why now? How have we changed? I can’t _see_ it… One day, you are you, and the next, you’re something more.”

Her hands closed around his fists and pushed them against his chest. He looked up at her.

“It didn’t happen in a day, Spencer. It’s been happening ever since I came back… at least for me, anyway. It’s like I can suddenly see a broader spectrum of light. I can see things in you now that weren’t visible before. But they’ve always been there - I’m sure of it. The problem is that I don’t think that I can un-see these things now that I know they’re there.”

“Emily, this feels like a mistake.” He freed one of his hands and pulled her in closer.

“A mistake is something that happens by accident, without previous thought or consideration.” Her lips closed over his sealing his argument inside him. He moaned a little and felt her smile against him. “I assure you that I have _considered_ this at length.”

He kissed her back, pushing himself flush against her body. Her hands moved into his hair, his tightened around her waist. Reid took his time. The kiss shifted and deepened. His hands roamed along her neck, over her back, and across her waist. Their tongues touched and Prentiss curled into him as if into a long-awaited shelter. He pulled her in so tightly that he found it difficult to catch his breath. When he broke away she looked at him as if she was seeing him for the first time.

“Don’t tell Claire.” He whispered.

“Why?”

“When we broke up, she said that we never had a chance because I was hung up on someone that I could never have.”

“Maybe she sees with a broader spectrum too.”

“I don’t care how she sees me - I just want her to help you. You are the one who matters.”

Prentiss caught his lips again and wrung a helpless moan from them. Her hands became rougher as she strafed his scalp and then tugged and pulled at his shirt trying to shift it up between them. He stilled her hands and pulled her away.

“No more hallways.” He breathed.

He led her into the bedroom and promised himself no more quickies either. He laid her down and made love to her like it was the last night of the world.


	11. Beginnings Aren't Simple

Reid roused as he felt the bed shift. His hand reached out blindly and hit nothing but sheets. He rolled over and reached out again - still nothing. He rolled back and saw movement in the shadows near the bedroom door.

“Em?” His voice was thick with sleep.

She stepped into the light from the window, fully clothed with a small smile curling her lips. “Go back to sleep. I’ll let myself out.”

_Wait… what?_

His body spooled up at an impressive rate and he was suddenly wide awake.

“Out? Where are you going?”

He fumbled around for his glasses and the clock on his bedside table. The read out said 3:30a.m. Prentiss stood in the doorway looking bemused.

“Home.”

She disappeared from the doorframe heading towards the front exit. He launched himself out of bed to follow her completely ignoring the fact that he was naked. He found her in front of the closet pulling on her coat. She turned and laughed lightly when she saw him. He belated realized that he wasn’t entirely naked - he _was_ wearing his glasses…

“Emily, why are you leaving?”

Her laughter faded and was replaced by confusion. “Well, I have to go home. I can’t stay here…”

He placed himself between her and his front door, leaning his hand against its surface to block her way.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“Even if you did,” Prentiss’s face took on a mischievous look. “You couldn’t have done it _all three times_.”

He blushed and looked away, rubbing his forehead with his free hand. “Then I don’t understand… you don’t need to leave. I want you to stay.”

“I can’t, Spencer. I’m not ready for that.”

“Ready for what?” His voice took on a note of frustration. “You’re ready to take the leap from friends to… whatever this is. You’re ready to let me have you… but you’re not ready to sleep next to me for the evening?”

“Spence,” She reached for his face and dragged his eyes to hers. “This isn’t about you, I promise. You were perfect. Surprising and passionate and… well, just fucking great, okay? This is about me. I have hang-ups.”

He sighed deeply and closed his eyes.

_You don’t get involved with someone in recovery._

He let his hand fall from the door and stepped aside to let her pass. She stroked the side of his face and tucked a strand of hair behind his ear.

“Are you really sure that you want this, Spence?”

He pulled her in for a hug and sighed into her hair. He didn’t answer her.

…

They had rules. 

The first rule was obvious and ever-present: inter-office relationships were taboo therefore no one at work could know. At the BAU they remained Reid and Prentiss, as they’d always been. Reid thought that it would be harder than it actually was. They were known to have a close friendship, so the occasional slip-up was written off as a by-product of that established dynamic. On the whole, it was fine so long as he viewed Daytime Prentiss as a different person. He worked with this person, but he spent his nights with a startlingly different woman who just happened to look exactly like her. Once the disconnect was made, it was easy to slip into it over and over. The only problem was that he had to split himself in two as well, and he wasn’t confident that he could maintain that for an extended length of time.

The next rule was an extension of the first rule: if they went on the road together, they kept a discreet distance at all times. It didn’t come up that often given that Prentiss was basically on medical leave, but they felt it was important to stamp out the possibility of discovery via the allure of hotel sex.

The third rule was: _never_ at Prentiss’s place. This rule had been followed up by questions, none of which had been satisfactorily answered in Reid’s opinion. Nevertheless, the rule wasn’t up for debate. Neither was rule number four: Prentiss always left before dawn. Words couldn’t express how much that rule hurt Reid.

The final rule had been Reid’s only stipulation: do not tell Claire. It wasn’t that Reid was worried about hurting Claire; their relationship had never been that serious. He was concerned that Claire would _professionally_ disapprove and possibly drop Prentiss as a patient. There was also the looming threat of having Claire analyze their relationship. It was one thing to acknowledge their poorly timed affair, but it was something else to have it criticized for its therapeutic consequences. Claire had influence over Prentiss and Reid was uncomfortable about being cut out of any conversation that addressed his fate. Period.

So, they had rules, and they seemed simple enough. Though people are rarely as uncomplicated as the rules that they make for themselves.


	12. Perspective

Three months in and Reid was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Who they were to each other in daylight remained strong, trusted, and deep. It was as if they had always been intimate, but it had taken six years for their bodies to catch up to their emotions. Since public displays of affection weren’t an option, the way that they behaved towards each other at work didn’t change that much. They still had their private jokes, they still fought over who would get the last mug of coffee, and they still traded barbs over the mountains of case files that threatened to bury them… Morgan once joked that if he didn’t _know_ that it was inconceivable, he would’ve sworn that they were a couple. The statement had irritated Reid. 

_Inconceivable? Really?_

What was more improbable and confusing was their nighttime relationship. The physicality had been dizzying at first. Once they’d crossed the barrier of friendship, their relationship took on a sexual intensity that he’d never experienced before. He felt himself slipping into something that felt a lot like addiction, and just as with Dilaudid, he craved it and structured his life from one hit to the next. The analogy frightened him. Sometimes the yearning for her was so intense that he had to mentally step back and remember who she had always been to him. This was _Prentiss_ : his closest friend and teammate. She was real and complicated and troubled. Their new physical reality highlighted how much he needed her, and it seemed like a betrayal of the promise that he’d made to her. He felt himself losing touch with the woman that he thought he knew. They were changing and it felt out of his control - all he could do was watch it unfold.

Some evenings were just about need. She appeared and they immediately collapsed into gasping, strained tangles of limbs and mouths. Their demands on each other increased until one of them broke under the pressure, eventually leaving them both drained and wordless wherever they ended up. Afterwards, Prentiss collected herself and would leave without a word. Reid had given up trying to stop her.

But other nights were different. They pulled each other in, using words to stroke and adore as they used their bodies. They enticed raw, unvarnished, sometimes frightening declarations from one another - things that left them shivering and in awe as they held each other after. These nights were always too brief for Reid and they were the ones when her refusal to stay stung the most. He had hopelessly fallen and searched for evidence that he wasn’t alone. He was addicted and didn’t care what that made him; he just wanted to know if his drug of choice loved him back.

One night, as she lay across him catching her breath and tracing shapes over his chest, he found the raw part inside himself and let it speak freely.

“What are you getting out of this, Em? Be honest with me.”

Her finger stopped moving and she turned to look up at him. “What do you mean?”

He raised an eyebrow at her in the darkness and let his question stand. She sighed and raised herself up on her elbows.

“There are things that I can’t give you, Spencer.”

“Like a straight answer?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I want to know whether you see this as a booty call or something much more serious. Because you switch wildly between the two and I want to know what the truth is.”

“Spencer…”

“Is this too hard? Too much to ask? Fine, I’ll lay my hand down first.” His voice took on a sharp edge. “You’re my friend and I love you. I loved you before we started this and I love you now, only _now_ the love has changed. Hasn’t it?”

He sat up a little so that they were staring at each other eye to eye.

“Sometimes when I’m with you, I feel you struggling to tell me things - to be yourself - as if you want more but can’t quite trust the impulse… I don’t know how else to show you that I’ll be there for you. You don’t have to be afraid: I’ll catch you if you stumble, Em.”

She looked away then, ducking her face down into her shoulder.

“If that’s too much to handle then we should stop this. I don’t want to be less than that for you. I told you that I was no good at casual…”

Prentiss turned her face back to him and stared. Her expression was unreadable but he saw her eyes burn in the faint light of the room. She leaned forward suddenly, grasping his jaw, and gave him a kiss that would rouse a dying man. His hands landed on her shoulders and tried to push her away - he wouldn’t let her evade the moment with lust. Her fingers dug into his jaw and held him, her mouth moving for a stronger connection - pulling him deeper and deeper. She released him as suddenly as she had started.

“This has been anything but casual from the moment I set foot back in the Unit.” She whispered. “But I need you to stop pushing. I’m trying my best, Spencer. Please believe that.”

He was dumbfounded. She had managed to answer him in a way that mimicked her confusing behavior for the past three months: intimate but guarded. He didn’t know how to respond. The best course of action would’ve been to end it but deep down he knew that it was a hollow suggestion. He felt himself slip into the familiar trappings of the addict: so long as she refused to cut him off, he’d keep coming back for more.

She got up from the bed and picked up her clothes. He sat up, desperate - the hurt, little boy inside him wanted to make her stay, make her _see_ …

“Emily, don’t go. Not tonight.”

She dressed quickly, never looking at him. When she was done, she walked to the bed and bent in to kiss him. He saw a tear had trailed down one cheek.

“This isn’t a choice. If it was, I’d choose you every single time.”

He watched her back out of the room and listened to the sound of her footsteps in his hall until the front door silenced them. He felt trapped and was ashamed that he loved the walls of his cage so much.

…

The following day Prentiss wandered into the conference room looking rougher than usual. Reid’s trepidation spiked as he noted the dark smudges under her eyes and the weariness in her expression. She had been doing so much better lately…

“Rough night, Prentiss?” Morgan had noticed too. “That book trick of yours no longer working?”

“Not exactly.” She smiled and Reid sunk deeper into his chair.

A moment passed where no one said anything, and then Prentiss spoke up.

“You know when you get to that moment in a story where everything seems hopeless and you can’t see how the hero is going to succeed? Somewhere in the back of your mind you know that it’ll all work out because it always does, but you’re so caught up in the moment that all you feel is desperation.”

Morgan’s look of concern matched Reid’s and when Morgan leaned over and took Prentiss’s hand in his, Reid wished that it could have been him instead.

“Are you okay, Emily?”

“Yeah, Derek.” She smiled and this time it was genuine. Reid’s sigh of relief was almost audible. “I was up all night thinking about that. I remembered that the best stories are the ones that seem hopeless - ones where the hero faces the impossible and through determination, unexpectedly changes his fate. They are the best stories, the kind that you fold up and carry with you. They tell us not to give up no matter how bad it gets. They resonate.”

“Wow. You sure get your money’s worth from those books of yours, Prentiss.”

Her laugh was self-deprecating. “I guess that therapy has made me a little oversensitive.”

“Whatever works, Emily. Whatever you need to get you through it… no one here will judge you.”

“Thanks, Derek.” 

Prentiss smiled and then dropped her eyes to the stack of consult files in front of her. The rest of the team straggled in carry coffee mugs and file folders and digital tablets. As Hotch strode in everyone sat up and focused on the matter at hand. Reid looked up from his case notes and caught Prentiss staring at him.

_Please don’t give up._

He quickly smiled at her and tried to infuse it with as much feeling as he dared in mixed company.

_Never._


	13. Retreating

Reid loved movie night. It was the perfect mixture of Daytime Prentiss and Nighttime Emily. There was the closeness of their longstanding friendship beyond the prying eyes of the workplace, and the candor and physical affection fostered by their illicit affair. Strangely, they had both silently agreed never to have sex on movie night, but the proximity between them on these occasions often felt more intimate. 

Tonight Prentiss lay along his torso as they spread out across the length of the couch. His long legs made a frame around her and her hands drew slow lines along his sides as they watched _Raiders of the Lost Ark_. Whenever Marion Ravenwood got into a fight or mouthed off to a Nazi, he absently ran his fingers through Prentiss’s hair.

“I don’t understand how Harrison Ford couldn’t see that he was just replaying Han Solo in that movie.” She said after the credits rolled.

“Perhaps he was in denial about being type cast.” Reid smiled at her. “To his credit, Indiana Jones was a lot brighter than Han Solo. And he had a doctorate.”

Prentiss chuckled. “Oh, all the difference in the world…”

“You know it.”

“I do. Three times over.” She leaned up and kissed him slowly. “I think that movie night is still my favorite night of the week.”

“Me too. It just seems like we are the most ‘us’ when we’re geeking out.”

He kissed her again and then got up to tidy the remains of their take-out. Prentiss stretched out her legs with a crack on the couch and yawned.

“Claire can’t believe that we have compartmentalized our lives for as long as we have. She felt sure that things like movie night would’ve been obliterated in the attempt…”

Her voice trailed off. Perhaps she realized too late what she had let slip. Reid’s back straightened and he stood still over the coffee table, half-filled take-out containers balanced in each hand.

“You talked to Claire about us?” His voice was quiet.

There was a long silence in which nothing in the apartment dared to make a sound. Eventually, he heard her shift behind him and sigh.

“Yes.”

Reid nodded his head as if it was inevitable and then carried the take-out boxes into the kitchen without another word. He tossed them onto the counter and gripped the rim of the sink hard enough to cause his knuckles to pop. He closed his eyes and told himself to throttle back his anger before she followed him into the kitchen; losing control now wouldn’t help anyone.

“Spencer?”

The sound of her voice ignited his anger and hurt anew. It was no use - he couldn’t stop the shaking that had taken over his body, or the mental cataloguing he was doing about all the ways that this was never - ever - going to work.

“I had to tell her. She would’ve seen it eventually.”

“How long… how long have you been talking about us?”

“Since the first week.” She sounded guilty and ashamed, and he was glad. She _should_ feel ashamed about betraying him. His hands tightened on the sink until his knuckles turned white.

“And what does she think?”

“Spence…”

“What. Does. She. Think.” His voice was so calm and low that it even frightened him a little.

“She thinks that it undercuts her authority and the establishment of therapy as my ‘safe place’. She thinks that I’m too dependent on you and that I’ve muddied the waters between us with sex. She thinks that you let me get away with too much.” Prentiss took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “She thinks that you should’ve known better…”

Reid’s fist slammed into the side of the sink before he even thought about it. Pain lanced up his arm, around his elbow, and on up to his shoulder as he felt his knuckle crack against the stainless steel. 

“Spencer!” Prentiss reached out to turn him to her, but he shrugged her away and cradled his hand into his chest. Of course he knew better…

Prentiss huffed behind him and her voice took on an edge when she spoke. “I had to tell her. This doesn’t work unless I’m honest about everything.”

“This doesn’t work unless you’re honest?” He turned to face her. “ _This_ doesn’t work at all, Emily.”

“What?” Her face creased up in anger and confusion.

“How have you defended your actions to Claire, Emily? You’ve been talking about us _for months_ … what decisions have you made and failed to inform me about?”

“I-I…”

“Is this why you won’t let me in, Em? Is this why you won’t spend the night, or why you short circuit any conversation that could address how we feel about each other?” 

“I don’t short circuit every conversation about our feelings.”

“Really? That would account for my incredible level of security regarding our relationship then…” He snipped. “You’re an open book, Prentiss.”

“Don’t be childish. It’s not like I’m the only one hiding how I feel…”

“I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU!” He bellowed. “How have I been hiding it?”

Prentiss’s eyes shot to the floor as all of the fight drained from her instantly. His hand started to throb and he swore under his breath as he saw this evening ending in an interminable wait in an emergency room.

“You know, Claire is right about one thing: I let you get away with too much. All of the rules and conditions… I never told you how they made me feel. If you needed them to feel safe, then it was worth it to me.”

She was still staring at the floor. One of her hands dashed up to her face and then quickly away, but she never said a word.

“But the one thing that I asked of you was the one rule that you broke almost immediately. Don’t _discuss_ me before discussing it _with_ me… that wasn’t just about intimacy, Em,” He breathed out raggedly. “It was about trust.”

She looked up then. Her cheeks were wet and her eyes were full and rimmed with red. A part of him wanted to scoop her up and brush away the tears, tell her that they’d work through it. But he didn’t do that. His rage crested again and he thought about all of the nights that they’d spent together, all of the little slights, all of the opportunities that she had to come clean…

“Could you live without a relationship, but not sex?” He leaned in closer, his eyes narrowing. “Perhaps I should consider myself lucky then… you’re strong enough to stand up to your therapist in regards to your carnal needs if not your emotional ones. And we were both still getting laid. Maybe you saw it as a good deal for a nerd like me, maybe you saw it as doing me a favor…and the sex was amazing…”

She slapped him hard across the face, enough to feel the exact outline of her hand against his cheek afterwards. He blinked a few times and then laughed. He had no idea what he found funny about the situation.

“Oh my god…” She whispered and covered her mouth. “Spencer, I’m sorry…”

“I think you’d better leave. Now.” He massaged his face with his undamaged hand. “Before anything else happens.”

\---

They kept their distance at work and they stopped calling each other. The team started to notice and subtle comments were made but he ignored it all. Hotch spent a lot of time watching them. 

For once he was glad that Prentiss was on restricted duty. She’d recently had her right-to-carry reinstated but she didn’t go into the field with them. When they brainstormed as a group, she was brief but incisive and she never engaged him directly. He shut down the part of him that sought to analyze everything she said and did. Inside he felt the raging, hurt child and the fragile, sexual ego combine into a terrible force that fought to escape him every moment of every day. His intellect held it at bay but he knew that this denied _thing_ would find another way out - he felt it burning, burrowing, clawing its way to the surface.

One day after a briefing, Hotch pulled him aside.

“What happened?”

“Nothing. We needed some distance - that’s all.”

Hotch fixed him with an icy stare. Reid gave nothing up. If he could restrain his shattered heart, he could hold off a Hotch glare. His boss’s lips tightened.

“She’s going to leave. It’s just a matter of time and opportunity now.”

Reid nodded. “Perhaps it’s for the best. She may love the job but I don’t think that it loves her anymore. Without that, what’s left?”

Hotch looked grim. “If you give up now, you’ll come to regret that decision, Reid. I promise you that.”

Before Reid could respond, Hotch turned and walked out of the room.


	14. Collapse

A month went by and Reid did his best to ignore the way his body ached and his heart cried out at the injustice of good intentions gone awry. His apartment became anathema to him. Every room, every corner held a memory of them. The end of his couch that he had labeled as ‘hers’… the countertop in his kitchen where she had rolled out pizza dough and then taught him how to toss it… the wall in his bedroom next to the dresser where he’d made her come using only his hands and the power of his words whispered into her ear… His home had become a prison of memory so he spent more time at work and buried himself in analysis and extrapolation, encasing himself in logic.

Somehow they managed to remain distant and detached at the office. Shortly after attaining her right-to-carry status, Prentiss was promoted back to active field duty as well. After the announcement, Hotch pulled Reid aside and asked for his assessment. Reid shrugged and ran down a detailed list of observed behaviors that supported the assertion that Prentiss’s therapy had been successful. Hotch raised a dubious eyebrow at him but said nothing. Reid found himself conveniently unavailable to attend the celebration dinner that the team threw for Prentiss.

However she felt about the abruption, she kept it to herself. It was both a relief and a festering wound to him. To hide how he felt cost him everything and she made it look as if it had merely slipped her mind. He felt like a failed hero; the story had beaten him after all. 

A request came from New York and the team went to Schoharie County to investigate the threats made by a local militia group. Because the threats involved bombing selected government offices in Albany, the investigation became a task force that included Homeland Security, ATF, FBI, as well as state and local law enforcement. In short, the case quickly became an unworkable mixture of competing egos and inter-departmental power plays that left everyone edgy and raw. Reid kept a furtive eye on Prentiss. It was her first case back in the field and it was just the kind of volatile mix that had set her off in Detroit, only on a much larger scale. Everything about him hurt when he looked at her but that didn’t mean that he was going to stop looking out for her.

After several days of analysis and navigating the bureaucracy that delayed evidence from one agency to another, the team developed a profile and delivered it to the task force. Prentiss was heavily involved in it. Her previous experience at Interpol, as well as several cult cases that she had worked while at the BAU, gave her unique insights into the militia’s dynamic. Reid held his ego in check as he listened to her deliver the majority of the profile. It was an excellent analysis, in his opinion, but then again, he rarely doubted her profiling skills - just her personal ones. 

A decision was made to take the militia on their own turf before they could make good on their threats. The team vehemently objected citing the obvious and very public failures of similar tactics at Waco and Ruby Ridge. They were overruled. Prentiss was vocal in her objection but Reid saw none of the volatility that she had shown previously: she was the essence of cool professionalism. He tried not to envy the perception of control that she exerted over all aspects of her life.

The militia had four parcels of land in the county: three farms and a storage facility. The task force was split into four groups all tasked with the simultaneous assault on the locations. Hotch headed the assault against the main compound, J.J., Rossi, Morgan and Reid were assigned to the two other farms, and Prentiss was given the storage facility. Each assault team would have a small army of Homeland Security, ATF, and state troopers backing them up, but that didn’t offer them encouragement as they suited up together. Reid prepared slowly, feeling a sense of dread creep up behind him. From the corner of his eye he saw movement that he knew to be Prentiss shrugging into her Kevlar. He wanted to tell her to watch her back. Just because she cut him more deeply than he could have imagined didn’t mean that he could stand to lose her. He sighed and checked his gun again, and then his back-up piece. He watched the floor as familiar boots came to stand in front of him.

“You ready, kid?”

Reid nodded to Morgan’s boots. A hand fell on his shoulder and squeezed a little.

“I know,” Morgan said under his breath. “I don’t like this plan either. Let’s just do this thing and get it over with, okay?”

“Yeah.”

Reid stood up and holstered his piece as he prepared to follow Morgan. He looked back at Prentiss and found her staring at him, her expression unabashedly emotional for the first time in weeks.

_Be careful._

_You too._

She held his gaze for another moment and then walked out of the room to the staging area. Reid let go of a breath that he didn’t know he had been holding.

\--- 

The building was just an old farmhouse like so many others in the county. Dilapidated and sagging, it sat well back from the access road now choked with federal vehicles. The surrounding woods had started its slow, determined encroachment over the house, and as Reid and Morgan approached the building, broken windows and rotten eves became more apparent. Morgan and Reid flattened themselves under one of the front windows and waited for the armored ATF and Homeland Security agents to take up their flanking positions. Reid stretched his fingers around the grip of his .38 and tried to breathe evenly under the constraint of his Kevlar vest.

“Morgan, are we confident about this?” He whispered. “You and I have both worked numerous cult and militia cases - this doesn’t seem like a likely stronghold. The building is vulnerable from the north, west, and east, it doesn’t have an alternate escape route, no apparent fortifications have been made - I doubt that it has more than a dirt cellar beneath it…”

“You saw the intel, Reid…” Morgan looked over his shoulder at him.

“Yes, I can _quote_ the intel, but seeing it… this building is the plaster and lathe equivalent of a bottleneck. It feels like a trap. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Morgan sighed and shook his head. “You’re not wrong - it’s pinging my set-up vibe too, but we have to check it out. Time’s not on our side here.”

“Okay, but let’s have the cavalry stay outside. You have field authority - they’ll have to obey the order.”

“I’m flattered that you want to die with me, Reid.” Morgan grinned.

“Are you kidding? I’d rather teach quantum mechanics to a room full of creationists, but I don’t see the need to put more people in harm’s way than is strictly necessary. You and I are all that is necessary.” 

“Agreed.” Morgan nodded and pressed his comm. unit to issue the order for the remaining agents to hold their positions. “Okay hero, it’s just you and me now.”

Morgan took point and braced the front door. A quick inspection with a dental mirror indicated no trip wires or hidden gunmen in the front entry. They stepped inside quickly, Reid’s hand against Morgan’s back to confirm his position. Reid hated this sort of assignment: clearing rooms and making quick tactical decisions. His senses were assailed with details that he didn’t have time to synthesize and it always left him feeling off balance. On top of that, his gut instinct was screaming that this was all wrong. Contrary to popular opinion amongst the team, Reid had great faith in his gut. 

The profile indicated an organized, technically sophisticated, highly paranoid group with a committed intent-to-harm mandate. Everything about the farmhouse contradicted that analysis. One by one Morgan and Reid cleared the ground floor rooms discovering nothing but mildewed wallpaper, rat droppings, and a rotting kitchen that hadn’t seen real food since the Carter administration. On the upside, they hadn’t seen any weapons, explosives, or evidence that anyone had been there recently either.

“This is spooky.” Morgan whispered.

“We’re missing something.” Reid murmured back. “We know their mission, we’ve analyzed their previous acts - the profile is solid. We just have to find the missing piece that links _this_ to all of that.”

“Well, I’m open to any theory, hero. You just call ‘em out as they come to you…”

Reid gave Morgan a dirty look and then nodded his head towards the stairs that led to the upper floor.

“First floor clear. Proceeding upstairs. All agents hold positions.” Morgan whispered into his comm. unit.

Morgan mounted the stairs with Reid close behind him. Reid felt it unlikely that anyone would elect to hide on the upper floors where there was less square footage and limited points of egress. It was far more likely to encounter resistance on the ground floor or the cellar, and yet, with every step upwards, his sense of dread grew stronger. To him, there was no doubt now that this was a trap. He began calculating survival scenarios in his head. 

_Movement - east cellar window._ The comm. message crackled through his earpiece.

Reid and Morgan froze on the stairs in unison.

_Confirmed. Movement, east cellar. Units 2 and 5 cover the windows, Unit 3 brace cellar door for entry._

“Hold until we clear the upper level.” Morgan hissed.

_Negative. Units 2,3, and 5 - you are a go._

“Shit.” Morgan huffed and then hopped up the stairs two at a time. “Let’s clear this place before World War III breaks out under our feet.”

Morgan and Reid reached the second floor where the only available light came from a murky window at the top of the stairwell. Rooms ran to the west off the narrow hallway and they managed to clear the first two before they heard the yelling and banging of the agents storming the cellar below them. Reid exited the second room into the hallway and saw the wiring around the doorframe before he saw the man standing four feet in front of him. The man smiled blandly, not at all concerned by the vest of explosives that he wore or the blinking ‘panic’ detonator that he held in his hand. Reid’s face went blank as he took it all in and felt Morgan back out of the room into him.

“That’s what I love the best.” The bomber said quietly. “The moment that the pig realizes that he’s fucked. It’s beautiful, man.”

“Hold it! F.B.I.” Morgan yelled as he trained his gun on the UNSUB. Below them, shots rang out. Reid lowered his gun and breathed deeply.

_Shit. I should have ended it better - now she’ll think that I died angry._

“Reid! What are you doing?” Morgan pushed against him.

“Look at the doorframe.” He said softly. “The whole place is wired. We were dead the moment we stepped inside. Maybe this was the plan from the beginning: issue a threat serious enough to interest federal agencies and then set traps for their agents. The resulting death toll and media coverage would highlight the failures of intrusive, jack-booted government thuggery, made more egregious by the profound lack of provocative evidence to justify their actions at the scene. It would embolden followers - perhaps even draw others to their cause. Am I right?”

“Pretty smart,” The bomber nodded. “for a pig.”

“Maybe that was the plan, or maybe you have a mole in one of our services and you just got lucky. Either way, you had time to orchestrate this - to take out as many of us as you could at once.”

More gunfire erupted from the cellar and Reid could imagine similar scenarios playing themselves out at the other three locations. He wondered how many cops were going to die today. He wondered about Prentiss - would she make it? A wave of despair washed over him.

_I’m sorry, Emily. I failed and I gave up. I’m nobody’s hero. It shouldn’t end this way…_

Reid looked up and caught a smug smile on the bomber’s face. Even though he was going to die as well, he was confident and satisfied with his actions. An irrational anger flared up in Reid; they might be dead but he was going to ensure that no one died _satisfied_. He suddenly pushed back against Morgan towards the top of the stairs. The bomber’s face creased into anger at the defiance.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going, pig? Stop!”

The bomber stepped forward and Reid pushed back harder so that he and Morgan were almost jogging backwards. Morgan grunted his disapproval but followed Reid’s lead regardless.

“Stop! You think that you can make it downstairs before I press the trigger?”

“I think that you’re afraid to die.” Reid baited. They were almost at the head of the stairs now - he just needed a few more seconds. “I like our odds.”

“FUCK YO-”

Reid didn’t wait for the final bluster. He turned and pushed Morgan through the window and then jumped after him. I split second later he felt the concussive blast slam into his back that pushed him further from the house. He had the strange sensation of heat and falling, and then a sudden, bone-snapping stop. He felt something like hot glass scrape across his face but he lay motionless, unable to breathe or see or hear. Another, less forceful blast sailed over him like a hot breeze on a humid day, and suddenly he could move - he had to - he was on fire.

Reid opened his eyes and saw flames licking his shirt and pants. Without thinking he rose up and slapped them out. He didn’t bother to check for burns. A piercing ringing sang through him as if his whole body had been turned into a tuning fork. The world was white hot and over exposed, and he fought nausea as he looked around wildly for Morgan. Suddenly, she was in front of him. She grabbed him by the vest and dragged him to his feet. Her eyes were blown out in panic. She mouthed something to him.

_How can she be here? It’s not possible…_

She mouthed something again, this time more urgently. She shook him.

“What? I can’t hear…”

She came in close to his ear. He smelled her perfume. He felt her hair brush against his face. He bristled as her breath caressed his neck.

“I still can’t hear…” The ringing had become almost unbearable.

Prentiss pulled away and centered herself in front of him. She shook him violently and mouthed out ‘MORGAN’. Reid looked around, away from her, and saw a smoldering heap close to the burning house. He tore away and ran to the blackened figure. Flames licked at several parts of the heap and Reid slapped them out before turning it over. Morgan was unconscious. Reid quickly looked him over and saw his right foot at an unnatural angle to the rest of his body.

The ground vibrated around him and he looked up to see what was left of the house begin to collapse sending flaming shards of wood and glass in all directions. The north side of the house was about to go and looked to crumble outwardly far too close to where he and Morgan were. Reid hooked his hands under Morgan arms and heaved backwards with everything he had. Morgan’s dead weight was almost impossible to manage but he yanked and pulled and dragged until he cleared them both back into the brush that threatened to claim the house. The north side framework collapsed and slammed into the ground where he and Morgan had been only moments before. The bone-dry crab grass caught fire immediately and soon nothing could be seen through the flames and smoke that swirled around the destroyed building. Reid’s legs gave out and he fell back into the long grass coughing up the sooty air that was now everywhere. He felt Morgan move against his legs and he shuffled his aching body to move beside his partner.

“Don’t move.” He didn’t know if he was yelling or if Morgan could hear him. All he heard was the ringing. “I think you’ve broken your ankle.”

Morgan grabbed Reid’s vest and then slapped it several times, hard. Under the endless ringing he heard something that sounded like ‘hero’. Reid looked over and saw Morgan’s unmistakable smile through the grime and the pain etched into his face. His mouth moved and this time Reid almost made out the words.

“Next time, you go out the window first.”

Reid smirked and reached for Morgan’s hand, squeezing it tightly. “A desk job looks pretty appealing right now.”

He lay back in the grass and closed his eyes. He felt burnt and beaten all over. His adrenaline rush had run it’s course and now he didn’t even have the energy to blink left in him. He focused on his hearing and, slowly, sounds came back to him: crackling as the fire consumed what remained of the farmhouse, wind in the trees behind him, and, eventually, the sound of sirens.

He didn’t know how long he lay there, or if he’d passed out. He felt hands on his body and opened his eyes to see black-grey smoke swirl above him into the late afternoon sky. A face appeared above him. He wore a hat emblazoned with the letters EMT, and Reid was so relieved that he smiled and said hello. The EMT smiled back and looked to the side and then back again.

“Can you hear me, Dr. Reid?”

Reid nodded.

“Your partner’s going to be okay - just a broken ankle, some burns, bruises and lacerations…”

He suddenly remembered that he had _seen her there_. Where was she now? How could she be there? Was she okay? The house had collapsed… He tried to sit up quickly.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” The EMT tried to hold him down. “Where are you going?”

“Where is she? Have you seen her? Is she all right?”

“Seen who, Dr. Reid?”

“Prentiss, Agent Prentiss…” Reid looked over at Morgan who was being strapped to a backboard by another EMT. He had an oxygen mask over his face, but his eyes were clear and he shook his head at Reid. “She was here. I saw her.”

“There are a lot of bodies still inside the house…” The EMT started.

“She wasn’t in the house!” He tried to get to his feet and free himself from the EMT’s grasp. “You must have seen her… where is she!”

Reid shrugged off the EMT and stumbled towards the smoldering house. From out of nowhere he was grabbed and held back by his shoulders. Reid turned to fight back and came face to face with Hotch.

“Reid, stop.” His voice was calm.

“Where’s Prentiss?”

“At the storage facility five miles from here. She and some Homeland Security agents caught three suspects trying to flee the building after they set up charges to destroy it. The ATF guys are orchestrating a controlled demolition of the building as we speak. She’s fine, Reid.”

All of the fight went out of Reid immediately. He sagged into Hotch and shook his head as it came to rest against the other man’s shoulder.

“I saw her…”

Hotch’s arms moved to encircle Reid as he slowly led the man back towards the EMT.

“Have you checked him for a concussion?”

“I was about to.”

“I saw her, Hotch…” Reid whispered.

“Maybe you did, Reid, but she was never here.”


	15. Balm

Reid closed the door behind him and stood staring blankly at his crappy hotel room. The ringing in his ears had become a persistent note attuned to the harmonics of his body’s tension. It caused him to vibrate even while at rest. His entire frame was sore - he felt as if every inch of him was a bruise. Catching himself in the bathroom mirror he saw that he was in fact whole but cut, scratched, and with burst ocular capillaries that made him look like he’d been in the fight of his life. His spine sagged, his knuckles were raw, and his lip was split and swollen from where he’d hit the ground face-first. The ER doctor had given him pills for pain and for sleep, both of which he’d thrown away as soon as he had been discharged. If only they made a pill to cure him of the hot mess that his life had become…

He took a few steps into his room and regretted it. His joints ached and his clothes seemed to slice against him as he moved. He looked down at himself and saw that his shirt was torn, dirty and crusted with blood - both his and Morgan’s. His pants had scorch marks and holes in them. One sleeve of his shirt was mostly gone where he had caught fire; the skin was scarlet underneath but not blistered. He needed to get out of these clothes. He needed to shower and rest. But all he could do was stand and stare.

The knock at his door caused him to physically jump. He groaned as his body reacted to the movement. He turned and slowly made the trip back to the door. The knock sounded again before he managed to open it. She stood in the hallway, her eyes puffy by dry. Her pupils were contracted in spite of the darkness and they moved over him frantically as he stood before her. He backed away from the door - a tacit invitation inside. He was too tired to talk.

She closed the door behind her and stood staring at him. Her hands twitched in the air as if she was marking every injury but was also afraid to touch him. He stood still and let her work through it, watching as her eyes slowly filled and then spilled down her cheeks. The hurt creature inside him howled with grief. And love.

“I have nightmares.” She said quietly. “Really bad ones. Not as much as I used to, but… That’s why I never spent the night with you. I didn’t want to burden you with another problem. Our evenings together were… well… I didn’t want to taint them, I guess.”

Reid felt his mouth fall open though he couldn’t think of a single thing to say. He watched as her eyes eventually found his burned sleeve.

“Does it hurt?”

“No.” His voice was rough, like he hadn’t used it in days. “Well, everything hurts right now, but it’ll get better.”

She looked into his eyes and her hand went to his face then stopped before she touched him.

“It’s okay. I won’t break.” He said.

Reid felt the warmth before the touch. Her fingers skimmed along his cheekbone and then down to cup his jaw. Her fingertips moved across the stubble that he had neglected to shave that morning. He closed his eyes; for a moment his hurt self was quiet inside and out.

“You should have told me about the nightmares. I thought that you refused to stay for more… callous reasons.”

“I realized that too late.” She whispered. “I also see now that I allowed Claire to influence my behavior towards you. She changed my perception of your actions. I became afraid of being dependent on you… I decided that I had to lock you out if I was going to heal. I pushed away because I wanted us to have a chance… some day. It sounds so stupid when I say it aloud…”

“I don’t want to talk about Claire.”

“I believe that her intentions were strictly professional, but she was wrong about you: you didn’t undermine anything. Our failings are mine.”

“Emily…”

Her fingers moved to his lips to stop him.

“Thank you for not dying today.” Her voice cracked. 

The feeling creature inside him wanted to touch her, wanted to talk to her until the sun rose, it wantwantwanted…

“I heard the comm. chatter, you know.” Her voice got thicker with every word. “They said that you and Morgan had gone in the house but no one saw you come out.”

“Emily…”

“We were only five miles away but we hit one of the spike strips that the militia had buried in the service road… I had to run the last half mile to the scene…”

The creature reached out and pulled her into him, throwing his battered body off balance in the process. His bloodied fingers dug into her, caging her against him. He dipped is head down into the well of her shoulder, too tired to support it any longer. Her arms closed around him, fingers snaking through his tangled hair to cup the base of his skull. She squeezed him and he groaned as his body complained. She tried to release him but he held her tighter: _damn the pain_. He felt words catch in his throat but couldn’t manage to set them free. Only a soft whine escaped.

_Christ, you hurt so much but I love you. Wanna drive you into the heart of me. I don’t care if I bleed out…_

“You need to lie down before you fall down. C’mon…” 

She began to undress him and he let her, offering a minimum of assistance. He hurt too much to do anything more. She stripped his destroyed clothes from him and piled them in a heap near a trashcan. She went through his go bag until she came up with a clean t-shirt and boxers, and then helped him into them. Next she turned down the bed and guided him to it like a sleepy child. His body complained as he curled under the sheets, but he felt the bed sink as she sat down next to him and stroked his hair away from his face.

“You need a haircut.”

“To be fair, it looked better before I was blown up.” He murmured as his eyes closed and he sunk into the pillow.

She continued stroking his hair until he felt himself pass into a less tangible place. The pain lessened and the rhythm gave him comfort as he allowed himself to forget and sink deeper. The surface beneath him shifted and his trance was broken when he realized that the rhythm was gone.

“Stay…” He didn’t know if he had said it aloud or not.

Something shifted and he was surrounded by warmth. The rhythm started again and he sighed, telling himself that it was okay to let go now. Her scent was close - he could almost taste it - and then he did, just for a moment as lips brushed his. He thought that he heard someone say, “I’m sorry”, but couldn’t be certain. He ignored it and burrowed deep into the warmth that cradled him knowing that, tonight, he was safe from harm.

\---

Two weeks later Prentiss returned the favor and almost got blown up twice. On the same day. 

The Face Cards case had been enough to break the Unit for good, and yet everyone remained whole somehow. Stranger still, it had culminated in a wedding. Reid was delighted for J.J. It seemed odd to him that the only member of the team in a functional relationship had refused to get married until the threat of death reshuffled her priorities. Better late than never, he supposed. Better than what he was left with. 

After the house bombing, tension had eased between he and Prentiss. He hoped that it was a sign that they could work their way back to something, but then he had seen it. It was as obvious to him as the wrongness that he saw when she returned from Europe. The only question that remained was _when_.

After dinner couples paired off to the dance floor. For once, his fear of looking awkward couldn’t trump his need to know, and he drew her away from her table with a touch and a nod.

“I didn’t know that you could dance.” She smiled.

“I can’t but I’d appreciate it if you kept that to yourself.”

She laughed as he pulled her against him and made a concerted effort to imitate some Cary Grant suaveness. She made it easy for him and once he’d made a few turns around the dance floor, he set his feet on autopilot and focused on her.

“You look amazing.” She said. “Great suit.”

“Thanks. A thrift store special didn’t seem appropriate for J.J.’s wedding, so I took a page from your book: you always look wonderful.”

She blushed but her eyes moved away from his and his heart sank. He held her closer for a few turns, their temples touching as they looked over each other’s shoulders.

“So, what’s the offer?” He whispered in her ear.

“Interpol.” She sighed, not even trying to act surprised at his question. “Heading up the London office.”

He nodded against her neck and closed his eyes.

“When do you go?”

“I haven’t accepted it yet.”

“You will.”

She pulled back and stared at him, her face pleading.

“Tell me to stay.”

“I would if I thought that it was the right thing to do.”

“And you always have to do the right thing…”

“Not always. But when it comes to you, Em, I try.”

She buried her face in his neck and tightened her grip on him.

“You’re infuriating.”

“I love you too, Emily.” His voice could barely be heard over the music, but her sob was infinitely softer. He smiled sadly - that was more than he had expected.

They turned and turned and turned. The song seemed to stretch out forever. He soaked up every second that his body pressed against hers. Her fingers twined into his so tightly that the joints turned white with effort. He saw Morgan limping towards them and loosened his hold on her.

“Mind if I cut in, kid?”

“Sure, if you think that you can live up to my sterling standards with that cast on…”

He put on his best casual face and watched as Morgan ate it up with that big, flashy grin of his. He knew that Prentiss was still looking at him though. He bent and brushed his lips against her cheek as he dropped his arms and stepped away.

“Goodbye, Emily.” He was smiling but he knew that she wasn’t paying attention to that.

“Reid, I’ll give her back, man, I promise.” Morgan chuckled and drew Prentiss into his arms.

Reid nodded and watched them move out amongst the other couples on the dance floor. Prentiss clung to Morgan as she watched Reid back away from the dancers. The frightened thing inside him started to roll and heave in panic. He took a few deep breaths and pushed the thing as far down as he could manage. This was the right thing to do. She needed this, so he would make it work. He went back to his table and celebrated the day with his family. 

The next day, Prentiss talked to Hotch, and two weeks after that, she was gone.


	16. Time Lapse

SIX MONTHS LATER

“Reid, wait up!” Morgan jogged up to Reid as he was waiting for the elevator. It was still early enough that most of the team was still there, but he had finished his reports and was heading home for the day.

“Got plans tonight?” Morgan smiled, which meant that he was up to something.

“Actually, yes. Why do you ask?”

“Really?” Reid tried not to be irritated by Morgan’s incredulity. “Garcia and I were gonna go try that new Tibetan restaurant near the capitol… she’s bringing along a friend that she’d like you to meet.”

Morgan waggled his eyebrows and Reid rolled his eyes. This was the third woman that Morgan had tried to set him up with in six months.

“Thanks but no thanks, Morgan. The last woman had haematophilia. She spent most of the evening trying to trip me up in hopes that I would cut myself. It was quite possibly the worst date I’ve ever had, and that’s saying something.”

“Oh, wow. I didn’t know that, kid. I’m sorry. But you know, _this_ one…”

“How about you blow off Garcia’s friend and just take _her_ to dinner instead. You know? Just the two of you?” Reid interrupted.

“What?” Morgan acted as if it was a ludicrous suggestion. 

“How long are you going to play it safe with her?” Reid stepped towards Morgan and lowered his voice. “Can’t you see that she just as scared as you are? Nothing changes unless someone risks… be her hero, Derek. Tell her what she means to you.”

Morgan’s expression darkened a little. “What has gotten into you? You’ve been avoiding most of us for almost half a year, and now you’re doling out dating advice? I gotta be honest, kid, I’m starting to worry about you… I wish you’d talk to me.”

Reid waved the comment away. “You and Garcia are my friends and I love you. It frustrates me to see you two deny yourself the joy of knowing what you could have if you just let each other in a little bit. Do with that what you will.”

Reid raised his hands in surrender just as the elevator signal chimed and the doors slid open. He backed his way into the cab and selected the parking level. “Please stop setting me up, Morgan. Consider me ‘off the market’, okay?”

Morgan grabbed the elevator doors to prevent them from closing and leaned in. “Tell me that you’re talking to someone, Reid. I’m serious: I’m worried about you… Maybe Prentiss? Have you heard from her recently?”

Reid sighed deeply. He couldn’t help it, and suddenly Morgan’s expression changed entirely. “Awww, kid…”

Reid stopped him and removed his hand from the doors. “G’night, Morgan. I hope that you and Garcia have a memorable evening.”

The doors slid shut and he breathed a sigh of relief.

\---

He climbed up on the hood of his car and stretched out making sure to leave ample room beside him. There wasn’t much to look at tonight but the moon was full and that in itself was beautiful to behold. He reached for his thermos and poured out a cup of tea, feeling the pressure of the thick envelope in his jacket pocket press against his ribs as he moved. It was in his mailbox when he arrived home and for some reason, he stuffed it in his jacket instead of placing it in the drawer of his desk with the rest of the unopened letters. All on the same stationary, all with the same handwriting…

He’d submitted his philosophy thesis - finally - and he wanted to share that. Sitting on the hood of his car in an empty field at night waiting for someone who would never come was the best that he could do. Perhaps he thought that the letter was a talisman of sorts; by keeping it close tonight, she could be brought nearer. It was foolish and he knew better. He found himself shaking his head at his own sentimentality. They didn’t have some supernatural link to one another - they weren’t looking up into the sky at the same moment and thinking similar thoughts. They were just two organisms out of billions clinging to the surface of an orb spinning through the cold vastness of space.

He sighed and the letter shifted against him. He was surprised that he still received them. One day in the not too distant future, he would receive the last one. He couldn’t bring himself to read them and he never wrote back, so their cessation was just a matter of time. At the moment, it meant everything that for the few minutes it took to write them, she was thinking of him. It was concrete proof that he still existed for her… _in_ her. When the letters stopped, only then would it be truly over. He didn’t know how he was going to handle that when it came. 

He raised his cup to the stars in a toast.

“Here’s to you, tonight.” He never spoke her name aloud anymore. “You were always too smart to do anything this pointless.”

He drained the cup and packed up his thermos. It was a long drive back to the city.


	17. Epilogue

EIGHTEEN MONTHS LATER

The Oxford and Cambridge lectures had been more thought provoking, but his seminar at Scotland Yard had yielded more practical criticism of his theory, which, in the end, would prove to be more valuable to its implementation. As much as he disliked trying to win over workaday LEOs with his occasionally esoteric psycho-jargon, they did force him to streamline his arguments and provide real world applications for his academic musings. There’s something to be said for seeing things from outside of one’s own head for a while.

He unplugged his laptop and collected his things from the dais as the constables and detective inspectors filed out of the media room, some grumbling about time wasted and others quietly reflecting on what was said. Reid saw a small group assembling by the main doors, waiting to engage him with more questions. He pulled his pocket watch from his vest and saw that he still had a two hours before he had to be at Heathrow. He donned his suit jacket, picked up his satchel and headed for the doors.

“Fascinating lecture, Dr. Reid, but I’m not sure how it’ll effect day-to-day policing.” One young officer stepped forward, introducing himself as D.C. Moffet. “Most of us will never work a murder, let alone a serial case…”

“What’s so interesting about diagnosing callous-unemotional pathology, or pre-psychopathic behavior in children is that it is a behavioral type that can apply to a myriad of antisocial activities, not just murder.” Reid shoved his hands into his pockets, trying to suppress his urge to gesture. Cops never took that well…

“The absence of fear in the psychopath invariably leads them to conflicts against societal restrictions that are meaningless to them, i.e.: crime. When you have no fear of consequences or what your peer group will think of you, risk-taking behavior such as law breaking or placing one’s welfare in jeopardy can actually become an enticement, not a deterrent. Elements of psychopathic behavior can be seen in stock traders, successful CEOs, terrorist organizations, organized gang and cult groupings - not every psychopath will commit murder, or even commit a crime, but all of them will be susceptible to the allure of antisocial behavior. Every cop has to deal with that.”

Another officer spoke up. “Sounds like another excuse to get thugs off in court. The little buggers already get too many…”

Reid sighed. “It’s important to remember that this is not a new phenomenon. Just because we couldn’t see it before, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t there all along. Now that we can perceive it, we must be prepared to deal with it. While my specialty lies in major serial crimes, this theory can be applied to a much larger framework in law enforcement and crime prevention.”

“But you said that there’s no treatment for psychopathic disorders. What’s the point in recognizing it if you can’t change it?”

“It’s arrogant to think that we know everything about human behavior. Perhaps in recognizing the early signs of this pathology we can change it’s nature…”

A voice rang out from the back of the room. “That’s a pretty optimistic sentiment from someone who spends his whole life hunting down killers.”

“If we lose our ability to be horrified by what we see everyday - if we stop wanting to change it - then we have no business policing anyone.”

He turned to face the voice as Emily Prentiss slowly made her way through the crowd of London’s finest. 

“I couldn’t agree more.” She smiled as she stopped before him and held out her hand. “How are you, Reid?”

He dumbly stuck out his hand and clasped hers. 

_Seven hundred and forty-two days, nine hours and fourteen minutes._

Something had been sleeping inside him for seven hundred and forty-two days, nine hours and fourteen minutes but now it was awake and ramming itself against the door that separated it from her. 

“Emily.” Was all he could manage.

Prentiss held his hand and his eyes too long. The officers surrounding them began to rock on their feet nervously in silence. She turned away from him but still held his hand, smiling at the collection of cops.

“Sorry, gentlemen, but I need to steal Dr. Reid away from you on a matter of business.”

She pulled Reid out into the corridor as the officers cleared their throats and went about their day.

“Isn’t it marvelous how the English sense an awkward situation and then disappear into the plaster?” She whispered conspiratorially, still holding his hand. “Americans would never do that - they enjoy a spectacle too much.”

“How did you know I was here?”

“One of my agents caught your talk at Cambridge. He told me about ‘this skinny genius from America’ with a crazy theory about pre-psychopathic diagnoses in children. He thought that you were cracked, but he recommended your lecture. I almost didn’t make it in time - cross town traffic is murder at this time of day…”

He couldn’t stop staring. She looked wonderful. Prentiss gave off the impression of calm authority. She looked sharp, confident, and fully in command of herself and her surroundings. Gone were the guarded looks, the exhaustion, and the self-doubt. His chest filled as he realized that accepting the Interpol job had been the last step that she needed to complete her recovery. It was worth every sleepless night, every lonely hour spent wondering how she was to know that he’d made the right decision when he _didn’t_ beg her to stay. Instead she had thrived in one of the most stressful, crowded, noisy cities on the planet. He was proud of her.

“You’re staring, Reid.”

“Sorry.” He shook his head. _Get a grip, man. It’s been years…_

“You look great… you always look great…” _Oh for chrissakes, genius – pull it together!_ “I mean, I guess that I thought that I’d never see you again. This is unexpected.”

Prentiss’s smile faded a bit and was replaced by a bland expression that he knew from experience she used to hide deeper emotions: he had hurt her. She let go of his hand and he started to stammer as he rushed to explain himself. 

“Th-that came out badly…”

“I emailed, I called… I even wrote you some letters.” She ignored his comment.

“I know. I have them in a drawer at home. I haven’t read them.”

She didn’t try to hide the hurt from her face this time. “Why? Do you hate me that much?”

“No.” He shook his head. “You needed to leave and I needed to let you go. Anything that you could have said in those letters would have undone all of that effort. And it took a great deal of effort to let you go, Em…”

The creature burst through the door bringing with it every moment and every feeling that he had so assiduously locked away when she left. The flood crashed against him, rocking him on his feet. He squeezed his eyes shut and saw flashes of memory, perfectly recalled, as if they had happened only moments before. 

“Spencer?”

He felt her grip tighten on his hand once again and he opened his eyes, grabbed her and kissed her hard. He didn’t care that they were in the middle of London’s busiest police station. He didn’t care that they hadn’t spoken in over two years. Sometimes doing what was right wasn’t convenient. He did what was right two years earlier and he was doing what was right _now_. It always felt right when he kissed her - he could finally admit that to himself.

“Thunderbolt experience.” He murmured as he pulled away.

“What?” She gasped but he knew that she’d heard him clearly.

“God, I hope that you aren’t dating someone, because if so, this is awkward.”

She laughed softly and shook her head. “No. You?”

“I was, but that’s over.”

“When did it end?” He couldn’t tell if she was jealous or not.

“About five minutes ago when I saw you walking towards me.”

Her eyes widened in surprise and he spoke before she did. “It wasn’t serious on either side. It was just… something to stave off loneliness. It couldn’t stand up to an electrical atmospheric event.”

“Thunderbolts?” 

He nodded. “Enough to make Tesla swoon.”

“Nerd.” She smirked.

“Nerd lover.” He buried his hands in her hair and pulled her in for another kiss. New Scotland Yard was quickly becoming the most romantic place he’d ever visited. She moaned softly and pressed herself against him, her hands reaching around his back to hold him close. He heard whispers as they drew attention to themselves, but he ignored them as his mouth moved over hers, pulling her deeper into his arms.

“Come to dinner with me.” She whispered against his ear.

“I can’t. My flight leaves in two hours.”

She pulled away, confused. “You’re _leaving_?” She shook her head roughly. “No, no… change your flight. Stay a few more days…”

“And what then, Emily?” He sighed as she backed away.

“You just told me that you had a thunderbolt experience!”

“I did, but that doesn’t change the fact that we are separated by five time zones and a significant body of water. We can’t deny reality. I’m just glad to know that what I felt… what I’ve been feeling was real. I’ve been wondering for a long time whether I imagined it, or made it out to be more than it was. But I didn’t: I am still alarmingly in love with you. I have tangible proof now, tested by both time and distance.”

He smiled and rocked on his feet, proud of his discovery. He momentarily put aside the realization that the joy of his victory would disappear the instant his plane lifted away from the tarmac. Prentiss made a loud irritated sound at him. She was much more upset than he had expected and it sobered him a little.

“What would you have me do, Emily? Resign from the Bureau and emigrate? Find a teaching position in some musty university somewhere?”

She huffed and crossed her arms. Some of her irritation drained away from her as she slowly shook her head.

“No… no, of course not…”

He stepped forward and reached for her hand.

“Drive me to the airport. We can spend some time with each other before I go.”

“That’s not enough.”

“It’s what we have.”

She looked down at their linked hands and stroked them.

“Okay, c’mon.” She said finally.

One of the perks of being an Interpol section chief was having a driver. Reid and Prentiss piled into the back of her official vehicle and allowed her driver to negotiate the London traffic and the endless perma-drizzle. Prentiss stared at Reid in silence for a long time. He was so delighted to be near her again that he seemed to forget the endless array of questions that he wanted to ask. She was so close: their shoulders and legs pressed against one another, he imagined that he could feel her breath on his skin… She stretched out her hand and lightly brushed the beads of rain from his suit jacket. Then her fingers edged the crisp fold of his shirt collar, down his tie, until they rested against the center of his chest. His pulse was beating furiously and he wondered if she could feel it through the layers of his three-piece suit.

_How are you going to walk away from this again? Where will you find the reserves to do that?_

He found himself leaning towards her. There were things to be said but all he wanted was to be as close as possible for whatever time that had left. He had been living with the air of charged absence for years now and didn’t realize how inured he had become to the sensation until it evaporated in her presence. He wanted to fold up her essence and place it safely in his pocket to be carried with him wherever he went - closer than his next heartbeat. It wasn’t just enough to remember, he wanted the knowledge, the comfort, the assurance of her with him forever. That could not be recreated from memory. 

She shook her head a little as if trying to wake herself and cleared her throat.

“So, tell me the news… Did you finish that thesis?”

“Yes.” He smiled thinking of a moonlit field in Virginia. “Another doctorate under my belt.”

“Wow. A quadruple threat. I don’t know how you do it.”

“Mostly its just boredom – I have to find something to keep me occupied.” He paused for a moment and then stared at her. “I don’t think that I wrote more than four paragraphs of that thesis while we were together.”

Prentiss flushed and looked down. Reid held her chin and kissed the crest of her lips. She curled into him and he turned to put his arms around her and pull her in closer. The leather creaked as they moved against one another, and, belatedly, Reid wondered whether it was wise to be so obvious in front of one of Prentiss’s subordinates. No doubt tales of the London section chief making out with a strange, twitchy American in the backseat of a company car would be making the rounds in her office before the week was out. He tried to pull away but her hand snaked up and buried itself in his hair holding him still. She mumbled something against his lips that he couldn’t quite make out.

“Pardon?” He breathed.

“You need a haircut.”

“How am I supposed to know unless you’re there to tell me?” He smiled against her cheek.

“Tell me more news from home.”

It felt strange and wonderful to here her use the word ‘home’ in reference to a place that she hadn’t seen in over two years. He wondered if he was part of her ‘home’ as well. She was certainly part of his…

“Morgan finally worked up the nerve to tell Garcia how he felt. They are even more ridiculous around each other now than they were before… I thought that Hotch would have an aneurysm over it but it seems that the Bureau doesn’t consider field agents and technical analysts to be co-workers so everyone has decided to ignore it… or act as if they’ve always been together… which they _have been_ if you really think about it…”

Prentiss pulled away from him suddenly. “I’ll come to you.”

“Sorry?” Reid looked confused.

“You asked me what I would do to have _this_.” She gestured between them. “To have us. You can’t move here… that makes no sense and I wouldn’t ask it of you, but I can come to you.”

“Move back to D.C.?”

She nodded.

“That doesn’t make sense either, Emily. What about your career? You’re clearly thriving here…”

Prentiss shrugged. “Being section chief is less about investigating as it is about bureaucracy and political maneuvering. It makes me admire Hotch’s subtly and skill at it so much more now that I am in the thick of it myself. It turns out that I am my mother’s daughter after all… I have a talent for this.”

“All the more reason not to throw this all away.”

“The truth is that it’s just a job. It’s a job that I’m good at, but the job won’t look out for me, or keep me warm at night. For years I poured all that I was into my career and didn’t think about anything else. When Doyle came back and I was forced to run, I realized that all I had was the job - it was just a _concept_ and it wouldn’t save me. I had never been so alone in my life. Then I came home and discovered that I could have more… if I wanted it.”

Prentiss stroked Reid’s jaw.

“It took us years to get here, Spence. Years to be right for one another… years to realize what our intellects knew when we first met. You said that Morgan and Garcia have always been together, well, I don’t think that they are the only ones. I don’t think that I should let my job waste any more of _our_ time.”

Reid rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. He had absolutely no idea about what should happen next. He hoped that she had a plan.

“Well… how… how does this work now?”

“There have been rumors about the D.C. section chief for some time now. It is a poorly run, underdeveloped station and the scuttlebutt is that the U.S. director is looking for an excuse to replace him. In two years at the London office I have increased our case closure rate by seventy-three percent. Our productivity is three times that of my predecessor’s best results, and I haven’t increased our operating budget by one pound.”

Reid raised his eyebrows: that was impressive.

“Basically, if I want to move, I could probably choose my next posting. D.C. doesn’t have the status that London does, so that may cause hesitation in people’s minds…”

“Do you really think that you can make this happen?” Reid’s heart was in his throat fighting with the words that he was trying to get out.

_Please don’t force me to stuff all of this back into a cage. I don’t think I can… it no longer fits… it has grown so big, so strong…_

“I can do this, Spencer.” She grinned. Her words were so confident that he suddenly felt sure that she could accomplish anything.

“Heathrow, ma’am.” The driver called from the front seat. The car was still a little way from the main terminal. The driver seemed unsure whether he ought to park or if he was just dropping his passenger off. Prentiss was about to give him direction when Reid spoke up.

“I’ll get out here.”

Prentiss looked hurt and he leaned in to give her a soft kiss. “The hotel sent over my luggage. It should be waiting at the American Airlines check-in desk but they’ve probably put it on a plane to Islamabad or something. Then I have to make it through security - they always give me a hard time about my credentials…”

“I can fix that.” She kissed him back. “They’ll let me through security as well. We still have some time…”

“I don’t want minutes, Em. I want days, months, _years_ …”

“We’ll have that. I promise, one way or another.”

“Good.” He made his last kiss memorable; it would have to hold them both for 3670 miles and God knows how long.

“Does this mean that you’ll start taking my calls?” She was a little breathless when she said it. Reid nodded, looking forward to the possibility of speaking to her any time he liked.

“And you’d better read those letters that I sent. I spent hours on them.”

His heart made an odd little dance inside his chest. _Hours?_

“Okay. Anything else?” He opened the car door and calculated his chances of making it to the terminal without being splashed by a cab.

“No.” She sighed.

Reid vaulted out of the car and then ducked his head back down again as he leaned against the doorframe.

“I need to ask a favor of you, Emily.”

“Anything.”

“Just… hurry.”

He watched the smile transform her face and felt that it was the perfect thing to carry with him until they met again. He closed the car door and ran for the terminal holding his satchel over his head as he dodged cars, cabs, and transit busses. Reid managed to make it through the gauntlet unscathed and only slightly damp - the result defied his calculations. It proved that when negotiating London rain, as with life, timing is everything.

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The majority of this story was written BEFORE the season finale, but after seeing that episode, I had to re-write several elements. I wanted to create a plausible reason for Prentiss to leave the FBI. While this doesn't strictly adhere to season seven canon, I wanted it to remain close to it. In short, this story turned out to be a major pain in the ass - but I love Prentiss's character too much not write this 'farewell'. 
> 
> If you've made it this far - thanks for reading ;)


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